Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Bark To The Future’

Love

Beginnings

Sunday is for beginnings, when we take a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. There seem to be some newcomers to Chet and Bernie, drawn in perhaps by the $1.99 e-book February sale of Dog On It, first into series. So maybe this is a good time to mention that the Chet and Bernie series can be read in any order. For example, newcomers, you could skip right from Dog On It to Bark To The Future, the most recent. It starts like this:

“Let’s see what this baby can do,” Bernie said.

And there you have it. Bernie’s brilliance, lighting up the whole oil-stained yard at Nixon’s Championship Autobody. Let’s see what this baby can do. Can you imagine anyone else saying that? I sure can’t. I wouldn’t even try, and who knows Bernie better than me? Sometimes humans talk to themselves, as you may or may not know. Humans have a lot going on in their heads. Too much? I couldn’t tell you. But I wouldn’t trade places. Let’s leave it at that. The point is that when they’re talking to themselves they’re trying to dig down through all the too-muchness and get to what’s at the bottom, digging, as it happens, being one of my very best things. Maybe we’ll get to that later. For now, the takeaway is that Bernie talks to himself in front of me. So I know what’s at the bottom of Bernie, way down deep, case closed. Closing cases is what we do, by the way, me and Bernie. We’re partners in the Little Detective Agency – Little on account of that’s Bernie’s last name. Call me Chet, pure and simple. Our cases usually get closed by me grabbing the perp by the pant leg. Although there were no perps around right now and we weren’t even working a case, my teeth got a funny feeling.

Super Bowl Week (More)

Football comes up in Bark To The Future, the latest Chet and Bernie novel. (For newcomers, these are private eye mysteries following the team of Bernie (human) and Chet (dog). Chet narrates. He is not a talking dog, but as canine as I can make him.) Here, working on a case, they visit Bernie’s old high school:

“Chisholm High, Chet.” Bernie took a deep breath. His eyes got a faraway look. “A kind of madhouse, in retrospect.”

What was that about? We were parked by a playing field that lay alongside a brick building, not tall but big and sort of heavy-looking. Madhouse sounded bad but nothing bad seemed to be going on.  All I saw was a bunch of boys in football uniforms, many of these boys on the large side, standing around a red-faced bald little dude with a whistle hanging from his neck.

“It can’t be,” Bernie said. “Coach Raker? Shouldn’t he be dead?”

All at once I was finding Bernie a bit hard to understand. I made up my mind then and there not to let him out of my sight for the rest of the day. We hopped out of the car – me actually hopping and Bernie not, although he can, as he proved beyond doubt the day a diamondback slithered out from under the driver’s seat and started wrapping itself around the gear shift – and headed across the field.

 

Happy New Years Eve!

Happy New Year’s Eve! Have fun! Walking is a good way to go – no one ever got pulled over for WUI. Today is also the last day of the month, but we’re postponing the monthly Friend of the Month drawing to Monday, so tomorrow will be the last day for submissions. Just post a pic to the FB page!

(The digital version of Bark To The Future, the latest Chet and Bernie novel, is the daily deal today at all retail places. $2.99! With inflation, that’s close to free!)