Spencer Quinn S Heart Of Barkness Is The Latest In The New York Times Bestselling Series That The Los Angeles Times Called Nothing Short Of Masterful Chet The Dog, The Most Lovable Narrator In All Of Crime Fiction Boston Globe And P.I Bernie Encounter Heartache And Much Worse In The World Of Country Music They Re Both Music Lovers, So When Lotty Pilgrim, A Country Singer From Long Ago, Turns Up At A Local Bar, They Drive Out To Catch Her Act Bernie S Surprised To See Someone Who Was Once So Big Performing In Such A Dive, And Drops A C Note The Little Detective Agency Can T Afford To Part With Into The Tip Jar The C Note Is Stolen Right From Under Their Noses Even From Under Chet S, The Nose That Misses Nothing And Before The Night Is Over, It S Stolen Again.Soon They Re Working The Most Puzzling Case Of Their Career, A Case That Takes Them Back In Time In Search Of Old Border Town Secrets, And Into Present Day Danger Where Powerful People Want Those Secrets To Stay Hidden Chet And Bernie Find Themselves Sucked Into A Real Life Murder Ballad Where There Is No One To Trust But Each Other.
Spencer Quinn lives on Cape Cod with his dog Audrey, and is hard at work on the next Chet and Bernie adventure.Spencer Quinn is a pseudonym of author
- ebook
- 304 pages
- Heart of Barkness (Chet and Bernie Mystery, #9)
- Spencer Quinn
- English
- 20 June 2018 Spencer Quinn
- 9781250297716
Everyone s favorite canine narrator, Chet, is back to describe another case he solves with his partner, Bernie Lotty Pilgrim, country music singer , is about to plead guilty to murdering her manager lover, Clint Bernie thinks she s innocent, and sets out to find the truth.
Heart of Barkness by Spencer Quinn is book nine in the Chet and Bernie series New readers should note that the series is a first person narrative by Chet, the dog half of the duo, so the opinions, observations and conclusions are a bit different from those in other mystery books Needed information from previous books is included as part of Chet s current narrative, so new readers can easily follow along as Chet investigates everything and comments on people and events Chet describes himself and Bernie as part of The Little Detective Agency on account of Bernie s last name being Little Readers do have to get used to Chet s style as the narrator He makes constant observations and produces a running narrative of events from a dog s perspective He describes things as straightforward, kind of weird, or maybe not worth thinking about He observes that Humans can be tricky with smiles, and you have to watch carefully He states things with little if any emotion The dart player was headed for a yellow car parked in a far corner of the lot where the pavement stopped and the desert began He has his own priorities If you re going to play in this life, then play And is there anything fun than playing a brand new game This one was called Who Gets the Toothbrush A very prom...
A new Chet and Bernie book is one of the few that I will pick up and read immediately, regardless of the condition of my To Be Read list This ninth release in the series publication date July 2, 2019 continues the reading pleasure and my enjoyment of Chet s canine narration of the private eye cases of The Little Detective Agency.I ve pondered the chemistry of this series to figure out just what it is that I enjoy so much The humor is the best, the mysteries are great always tied to compelling human stories , and the inimitable relationship between canine Chet and all human Bernie is irresistible, particularly in the way that they both understand the other with simple glances and gestures But for me, the magic in the series chemistry is Chet.Quinn s clever writing has Chet able to give readers his limited, no offense canine perspective on action and plot development Chet helps us see the qualities of all the characters in the story his canine powers far beyond humans, no offense augment Bernie s skills, and Chet s deep and simple empathy and instincts make everyone including the reader richer in understanding life.This is a lot of words for the bottom line Chet and Bernie make for awfully good reading, and Spencer Quinn has given us a heart warming, laugh out ...
I enjoyed this very much, but then I usually do enjoy the Chet and Bernie books This one has Bernie trying to help a country music singer who has fallen on difficult times The situation becomes and tangled until Lotty Pilgrim finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation She doesn t trust Bernie Little of the Little Detective Agency so she won t cooperate with him on the case but somebody else is willing to hire Bernie to get to the truth.This story had a little bit of an unsettled vibe to it Bernie goes all introspective and large portions of his thoughts are not revealed to the readers which makes for some puzzled looks from me Bernie talks mostly to Chet in this story, and that s fine, but thrashing this problem out with a human person could have moved the story along and explained some of what Bernie was thinking I mean, Cheat is a cool dog, but his conversational talents are sadly lacking It was maybe a little too easy to figure out who the villain was and I was sorry about that I m hopeful that the next book will present interaction...
3.75 rounded up.It s been a while since I read a Chet and Bernie story, I d missed Chet s one of a kind viewpoint.It also seems I d slightly forgotten how we left our favorite duo at the end of Scents and Sensibility Bernie has been in the hospital for a few months recovering from the events of that book, and the future of his relationship with his girlfriend, Suzie was also left up in the air.With those loose ends in mind you can see why it takes a bit for the true meaty mystery plot of this book to really get going Not that I mind the slow build the Chet and Bernie cases can sometimes have, I just think that in some cases, this being one of them, the mystery itself could have been drawn out longer, time pages action put in Once we really find out what the heart of this case is about, the solve comes pretty quick.Anyways, if you want the plot, read the synopsis, cause it s hard for me to say any than it does without spoilers left and right.Chet and Bernie are possibly my favorite crime solving duo, and I m glad they re back.Idk if this is a new thing in Quinn s writing or if I hadn t noticed it before, but Chet can sometimes linger over discussing differences between men and women, which can kind of make sense from his observational train of thought dogness, but sometimes just feels like a joke said so many times it s gone very stale So those parts would kind of jar me out of the story and the...
Heart of Barkness by Spencer Quinn is the continuing story of the Little Detective Agency and is book nine in the series Chet and Bernie mystery In this quirky and sometimes humorous mystery which is narrated by Chet who is the canine part of this crime solving duo , Bernie and his loveable assistant Chet attempt to solve the murder of the manager of an aging country singer It appears to be cut and dry but as cases go, it turns out to be much .The story opens when Bernie and Chet are invited to hear Lotty Pilgrim sing at a dive bar on the outskirts of town Bernie and Chet, both being fans of country music, decide to leave a generous tip in Lotty s jar Lotty never sees the tip because it is quickly stolen right out of the jar under everyone s nose Chet quickly runs down the perp and Bernie returns it to Lotty only to see it being taken away by her Manager Bernie senses something is not right here Therefore, he makes an impromptu visit to Lotty Before he and Chet know it, they are drawn into a murder that is rooted deep in Lotty s past Someone is trying to keep her past buried and murder is not too high a price to silence anyone who digs too deep.Because I have a no spoiler policy, I am going to remain vague Instead I would like to talk a little about Chet, my favorite character Chet gives a running dialogue of observations and information that the reader needs to understand what is going on So it is not necessary to have read any of the other books in the series No...
I was so thrilled to get this book in my hands I was one of the devoted readers who was distraught at the end of the previous book, not sure if the story was going to continue or not Despite Spencer Quinn s reassurance that there was a clue right there in the second to last paragraph, I still worried Anyway, it s great to have Chet and Bernie back in such fine form There s nothing better than solving the case through Chet s stream of consciousness doggy thoughts Not a spoiler, but you know the theory that if you are shown a gun in the first act, it needs to be fired in the third Well, Chet discovers something he can do in the first few chapters, which leads him to theorize that maybe he could do something elseand I wanted so desperately for it to happen Alas, it di...
A murder mystery told by the PI s dog What s not to love Anthropomorphism is tricky It can be powerful when used to create a motif through which society is examined The Rats of Nimh Animal Farm Watership Down It can be powerful when it s used to elevate a message about humanity Charlotte s Web The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe It can be fun when not taken overly seriously and just used as a cute prose gimmick, as is done in HEART OF BARKNESS, but unfortunately the anthropomorphism as done here detracts from the atmosphere of the story I love a dog tale as much as anyone, but in order to effectively resolve the mystery, the dog has to come out of character a bit in order to share important observations about the case and then conveniently forget or disregard them, because dogs don t care about most human concerns I struggled a bit to maintain patience with this, bu...
3.5 starsAs funny as always, but this one had a particularly lame plot.Loved the part with the horse