Paw and Order (Chet and Bernie Mystery #7) - Spencer Quinn

Paw and Order is the 7th book in the Chet and Bernie Mystery series. As usual, Chet the dog is the narrator and his ideas and thoughts are often laugh-out-loud funny.

On this occasion Chet and Bernie find themselves in Washington DC, visiting Suzie Sanchez, who is Bernie's on-off girlfriend. She is now a reporter for the Washington Post and has picked up a keen interest in politics. She stumbles across a source for a story she wants to write about the upcoming elections and steps right into a murder. Chet and Bernie get involved as Bernie becomes a suspect in the crime. So their adventures begin!

I adore Chet the dog. He is funny, smart and gets side-tracked by things like food smells, squirrels, cats and loss of train of thought, but he always gets "the perp". Bernie is a loveable character, too, and the two are inseparable and work as partners in the Little Detective Agency which is based in Arizona.

If you want a different kind of detective/crime novel, filled with humour and narrated from an unusual perspective, then these books are the thing to pick up. Without fail each one has been an interesting adventure filled with all kinds of likable characters and Spencer Quinn makes Chet the dog's voice so realistic that I often find myself forgetting that he is a dog, that is, until he sees a squirrel!

Paw and Order goes on sale on August 5th. Be sure to get a copy, you won't regret it!

9.7/10

A Fistful of Collars - Spencer Quinn (a Chet and Bernie Mystery)

Chet the dog and his private investigator companion, Bernie Little, set out on case number 5 in this New York Times Bestseller series, Chet and Bernie Mysteries.

The mayor of the valley decides to bring some extra revenue to town by luring a Hollywood studio to shoot a big budget movie there starring movie idol, Thad Perry. Chet and Bernie are approached to keep an eye on the movie star who is known to have been a bit wild and unreliable in the past and is now under contract with the studio to deliver on time or be fired. The mayor wants the studio folks to be happy so they will come back again and he offers Chet and Bernie big money to keep Thad in line. Tempted by the lucrative paycheque, Chet and Bernie take the job and it isn’t too long before a mystery begins to unfold which connects Thad Perry to the valley and to an unsolved crime a couple of decades before.

This is the first book of the series I have read and from the start, I loved it. This story is written from an unusual perspective as the narrator is Chet the dog! Spencer Quinn does a good job of giving Chet a credible voice and he describes the relationship between dogs and their companions very well. It is clear that both Chet and Bernie adore each other and Chet’s unconditional love of Bernie is heart warming and funny at times. It wasn’t long before I was cheering them along too. The plot of the mystery is well written and there are a couple of twists and turns which are surprising. That I had not read the previous books in the series did not detract from my enjoyment of this story.

I will definitely be reading more Chet and Bernie Mysteries and would encourage you to do so too.

9.8/10