Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘snippets’

Tender Is The Bite (July 6)

“Why not you?” Bernie said.

Olek poked his own chest, quite hard, a move completely new to me. “I am no security expert.”

“Could have fooled me,” Bernie said, no doubt one of his jokes. There was no fooling Bernie, as I’m sure you’re aware by now.

Olek laughed, meaning he got the joke, which did not always happen with Bernie’s jokes, probably because they were too funny for most people.

https://read.macmillan.com/promo/tenderisthebitepreorder

Client Behavior

“Mavis?”

She ran to the Kia, an unsteady kind of run, almost losing her balance. What was going on? Was she a client? This wasn’t normal client behavior – maybe later in a case, yes, but not at the very start. She got in her car and slammed the door.

“Wait!” Bernie called.

Mavis took off, pulling into the street and speeding down the block. Bernie! Let’s go! On the stick!

But Bernie just sat there. “What happened?” he said. He watched until Mavis was out of sight. “Any point in chasing after her?”

Any point in chasing after somebody? I didn’t understand the question.

(from Tender Is The Bite; “now available for preorder!” – Mrs. Publicist’s pushy mom)

Heads Or Tails

Heads we reveal the meaning of life. Tails it’s a snippet from Of Mutts and Men, the most recent Chet and Bernie novel. Here we go and it’s … tails. (Ha!)

Wendell’s RV, with the beautiful waterfall on the side, was in a middle row between a smashed-up truck cab and a pile of motorcycle parts, some of them red-stained. A group of women had a big shaved-head dude backed up against the RV. The women were all new to me, but the dude was Itsy Bitsy Litzenberger, a perp at one time and now the junior assistant attendant of the whole shed experience, which just shows you. He saw us coming and called out over the heads of the women.

“Bernie! Help!”

“Hey, Itsy,” Bernie said. “What’s going on?”

The women all wheeled around. We had an old one, a not-quite-so old one, and a younger one than that, although you couldn’t call her young. They all wore yoga pants and gold watches. I sensed trouble.

Another Beauty Snippet

“What’s all that panting? Thirsty?”

Not in the least. And then extremely.

We parked by what looked like a glass-fronted store in  a strip mall. Bernie read the sign. “’Frontier Gazette. News you can trust since 1901.’” He filled my portable water bowl and I lapped it all up, then he refilled it and I lapped it all up again, and after that I gave myself a real good shake, some water droplets flying from my mouth and making tiny rainbows in the air. There’s all kinds of beauty in life. Thatwas my thought as we entered what had to be the office of the Frontier Gazette, if I was following things right.

(from Heart of Barkness, now available in paperback)