Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘A Fistful of Collars’

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

He came around from behind the cash register and rolled toward us in his wheelchair real fast, long hair lifting off his shoulders in the breeze. Vin was another old Army pal of Bernie’s, had a massive upper body and below that a lower body easily covered by a small blanket. They shook hands, Bernie’s hand, which normally looked so big, lost in Vin’s. “What’s doin’?” Vin said, reaching into his pocket and tossing a biscuit my way. I was ready, caught it in midair.

(from A Fistful of Collars)

Beginnings

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™. How about the Chet and Bernie novel A Fistful of Collars? It’s one of my few novels where Hollywood is a factor. The only others I can think of are Revolution #9 – where a character appears on Jeopardy – and Oblivion, where a TV movie is made of the case that made Nick Petrov, a PI and the main character, famous. Armand Assante was cast as Nick. (There’s fun to be had in the little corners of this business.) Here’s the beginning of A Fistful of Collars:

“Heard you drove another one off a cliff,” said Nixon Panero. He spat a thin brown stream of chewing tobacco into an empty paint can, or maybe not that empty. Yellow paint, the yellow of egg yolks, now with a brown swirl in the middle: there’s all kinds of beauty in life.

“You heard wrong,” said Bernie.

A Cat Was Involved

No surprise to Chet (he often deals with cats, but most especially in A Cat Was Involved, the short story where he meets Bernie, and in A Fistful of Collars, where he and a cat named Brando must come to terms).

Beginnings

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 the Chet and Bernie novel A Fistful of Collars came up yesterday, how about we feature it today? It’s one of my few novels where Hollywood is a factor. The only others I can think of are Revolution #9 – where a character appears on Jeopardy – and Oblivion, where a TV movie is made of the case that made Nick Petrov, a PI and the main character, famous. Armand Assante was cast as Nick. (There’s fun to be had in the little corners of this business.) Here’s the beginning of A Fistful of Collars:

“Heard you drove another one off a cliff,” said Nixon Panero. He spat a thin brown stream of chewing tobacco into an empty paint can, or maybe not that empty. Yellow paint, the yellow of egg yolks, now with a brown swirl in the middle: there’s all kinds of beauty in life.

“You heard wrong,” said Bernie.