Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘beginnings’

Beginnings

Sunday is when this small business takes a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. Since Santa 365 came up yesterday – granted, not a novel but a short story, available in digital and audio – how about we go with that?

“There’s no Santa Claus,” Charlie said.

“Who told you that?” said Bernie.

“Esmé.”

“Who’s Esmé?”

“At school.”

“Well,” said Bernie, “everyone has their own opinion.”

“It’s not an opinion, Dad,” said Charlie. “It’s a scientific fact.”

“Oh?”

“From a scientist.”

“Any scientist in particular?”

“Groucho Marx.”

Beginnings

Many thanks for your questions yesterday. Answers tomorrow! Meanwhile 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™. How about Bark To The Future, the most recent Chet and Bernie novel, now available in all formats – in a series that can be read in any order!)?

“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.

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 Chet refers to this scene more than once in the Chet and Bernie series (including in Up On The Woof Top, the next Chet and Bernie novel – Oct. 17) 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.

Beginnings

Sundays is for beginnings, where we take a look at the start of one of my novels. Since we already did Up on the Woof Top (pub date Oct. 17, preorderable) next book in the Chet and Bernie series – which can be read in any order! – how about we do the beginning of Chapter Two? (Senator Wray, mentioned here, plays a big role in Tender Is The Bite, the digital version of which is on sale for $2.99 for Sept. With inflation that’s basically nothing.)

Aside from Bernie, I’ve heard other speakers, Senator Wray, for example, although maybe not a senator anymore – can you still be a senator when you’re wearing an orange jumpsuit and breaking rocks in the hot sun? Right there is the kind of thing I don’t know, but we’re way off course because what I was getting to was the fact that every single one of those speakers had notes in hand, sometimes cards, sometimes – as in Bernie’s case, a bunch of papers, which had gotten away from him, perhaps more than once, but that might have been his sense of humor, and there’d certainly been lots of laughter, especially the first few times it happened – but I’d never seen a speaker with no notes at all, not until now.
Dame Ariadne Carlisle held no notes. All she had was a gold pen, a big fat one, dangling from the fingers of one hand. Here’s something crazy. I wanted that big fat gold pen, wanted it bad. Normally I don’t chew on metal, but I was sure that this gold pen would be charmingly springy to chew on, as long as I didn’t really chew but just sort of held it in my mouth, not too hard, not too soft, but just right. That, by the way, is the kind of thing I do know.