Dog on It
A four-footed K-9 dropout proves he has the stuff to solve a mystery.
There are so many pets out there solving crimes that it鈥檚 time for animal shelters to start handing out fedoras and trench coats with every adoption. Literature鈥檚 newest four-pawed sleuth, Chet, hews strictly to the hard-boiled American tradition in his debut, Dog on It.
Chet has far more in common with Philip Marlowe than Scooby-Doo. The San Diego investigator is a K-9 dropout who鈥檚 a little sensitive about his lack of graduation certificate and his mismatched ears.
He鈥檚 partners with Bernie, a divorced private investigator who is down on his luck. Like any good Watson, Chet鈥檚 loyal, brave, and maybe just a touch clueless.
When a 15-year-old girl doesn鈥檛 come home from school, Chet and Bernie are contacted by her frantic mother. Madison shows up later that night, but Bernie isn鈥檛 buying her story of where she鈥檇 been. Then Madison disappears a second time.
The police are convinced she鈥檚 just run away, but Bernie grows more and more concerned: Her disappearance smells like a kidnapping.
Spencer Quinn鈥檚 new buddy series features the most winning narrator I鈥檝e come across in a long time. Chet鈥檚 a little fuzzy on money matters, but he鈥檚 endlessly patient with his partner鈥檚 pathetic sense of smell, lousy hearing, and total inability to see in the dark. 鈥淏ernie missed some things, true, but you had to admire him: He never let his handicaps get him down.鈥�
Using a canine narrator to tell a mystery has been working for humorists since Harold the dog put pen to paper in 鈥淏unnicula鈥� in the 1970s, but Quinn is going for more than just laughs. 鈥淒og on It鈥� manages to ratchet up some real suspense. But even with Chet鈥檚 understandable confusion about the ways of humans, readers will solve the mystery before Bernie does.
That plot problem is overshadowed by a book that has opinions on everything from why it should be criminal to grow hydrangeas in a desert to a rather novel take on back hair. 鈥淲hat was wrong with that?鈥� Chet wonders. 鈥淚鈥檝e got back hair, lots of it, thick and glossy, and no one鈥檚 ever done anything but praise it.鈥�
Which just goes to prove, when it comes to unstinting loyalty, you can鈥檛 beat a dog.
Yvonne Zipp regularly reviews fiction for the Monitor.