Beginnings
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May 28th, 2023 Posted 7:08 am
Sunday is when we do beginnings, taking a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. Since Chet refers to this scene more than once in the Chet and Bernie series, including in Up On The Woof Top, coming in October, preorderable) how about today we turn to The Dog Who Knew Too Much, an in media res beginning where Bernie is giving the keynote speech to the Great Western Private Eye Association? It would be dishonest to say Gussie Fink-Nottle’s speech at Market Snodsbury Grammar School in P.G. Wodehouse’s Right, Ho Jeeves, wasn’t in the back of my mind:
Was I proud of Bernie or what?
True, he’d been pretty nervous going into this gig. I can always tell when Bernie’s nervous – which hardly ever happens, and never when we’re in action – because his smell sharpens a bit, although it’s still the best human smell there is, apples, bourbon, salt and pepper; but now, up on the stage, he was doing great.
“Which, um,” he was saying, “reminds me of a joke. “Sort of. Maybe not a joke,” he went on, turning a page, “more like a – “ and at that moment the whole wad of papers somehow jumped out of his hands, all the pages gliding down in different directions.
Tags: beginnings, The Dog Who Knew Too Much, Up On The Woof Top
Posted in Chet The Dog
