Play Book Tag discussion

Chet, the dog, and Bernie, the human partner, own a detective agency. Chet was rescued by Bernie after he flunked out of K9 Cop School. Somehow a cat was involved. Chet narrates their adventures.

In this episode, they are hired to work as bodyguards at an important dog show. Their client is a valuable pedigreed dog called Princess, who has received some death threats. Normally, they wouldn't take bodyguard work but Bernie's recent bad investment in tin futures and the proffered large fee make it impossible to turn down. They are fired before they can do more than meet Princess. When Princess and her owner are kidnapped, Chet and Bernie try to find them. Bernie's on again, off again journalist girlfriend disappears while following the story, which makes it even more urgent to find Princess.

Spencer Quinn does a fantastic job of giving the dog's eye view from Chet. If a dog could really talk, I hope he would sound exactly like Chet. He often loses focus and and his comments result in some hilarious moments. One example is when Chet hears someone say, “They didn’t see diddley,” He latches on to that, remembering “Bernie was a big Bo Diddley fan…Was Bo Diddley a suspect in the…case?” When Chet and Bernie are separated, some stoners try to sell Chet to a man who wants to take him to Alaska. Will they ever be reunited?

This is such a clever series. It's well written, humorous and irresistible, particularly in audio. I didn't do the audio on this one but have already ordered it for the next book of the series. Jim Frangione is a masterful narrator. The mysteries are okay and fairly easy to solve but that's easy enough to overlook to be able to spend extra time with Chet. I read a lot of gritty mysteries but always look forward to spending time with these two clowns.

Pretty sure I have this one on my Subdue Shelf. Agre with you on the series - great fun to spend time with them.