Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Oblivion’

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.

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.

 

From the Past

Someone sent me this over the weekend. A review from some time ago. Here it is, for no reason. Meanwhile and more important, it’s almost the last day of the month, so the eligibility window for those looking to be Chet’s December Friend of the Month is closing fast. Just send a photo to the FB page. The random number generator does the rest.

https://www.salon.com/2005/06/06/abrahams/

 

Beginnings

On Sundays, we’ve been doing beginnings, taking a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. How about Oblivion, my first actual private eye novel (all the Chet and Bernies are P.I. novels, but rather different from Oblivion – although I bet you can find similarities, too).

[“Exciting and out of the ordinary… full of funny, touching and alarming surprises… His funny and stout-hearted dogs (like Buster, who becomes Petrov’s assistant for a few hours) are unmatched by anyone’s, including Dashiel Hammett’s and Robert B. Parker’s… Peter Abrahams is a wonderful writer.”
– L.A. Times (Tom Nolan)]

Nick Petrov, in the witness box, waited for the next question. The lawyer for the accused looked up from his yellow pad and fastened his skeptical gaze – familiar to millions of cable talk show viewers – on Petrov’s face. The lawyer had eyebrows like Einstein’s, resembled him in general, Petrov thought, but with a better haircut. Perfume from the previous witness still hung in the air.

“Been quite the career,” said the lawyer, “hasn’t it, Mr. Petrov? So far.”