It figures that America’s love of detective fiction and its more recent obsession with dogs would eventually merge. Fortunately, the offspring is wonderfully entertaining.
He’s called Chet, a K-9 school dropout who fixates on Honey-Nut Cheerios, the scent of coyotes (they smell sour) and his buddy and partner, private detective Bernie Little of the Little Detective Agency.
Chet is also the narrator of Spencer Quinn’s “Dog On It,” a 305-page quick read that is short on inventive plot but sweetly engaging. That’s because it explores the relationship between Chet — a mongrel with one white ear and one black ear — and Bernie, who is on a bit of a losing streak and needs a big case.
Chet is Bernie’s full-blown and unquestioning supporter, who lends his nose and acute judge of human character to Bernie’s cause. He’s also a bit of a wiseacre.
Try to imagine the personality of Jim Rockford or Philip Marlowe somehow fused with one of Edgar Sawtelle’s dogs and you get a clear picture of Chet’s outlook.
“Dylan McKnight, a stranger, uninvited — and if I hadn’t missed something, also a jailbird — was on our land! And now he turned out to be one of those humans with a deep fear of me and my kind; always fun to bump up against one of those. No hiding fear like that from me — I could smell it. I bumped up against him again, not too hard.”
In this debut novel set in an unidentified Western state, the story is fairly routine. A wealthy divorcee hires Bernie, a former cop, to find her missing 15-year-old daughter, Madison, who is by all accounts a good girl.
The girl returns a few hours later and the case appears closed. But something bugs Bernie about her disappearance, and when she comes up missing again, he’s on the case.
Soon enough, Bernie and Chet run up against Madison’s father, a real estate developer who quickly makes it onto Chet’s bad- human list. “The man was about Bernie’s height but not as broad; he had a goatee, which always caught my attention, and I was staring at it when his smell reached me, the very worst smell in the whole world: cat. The man in our driveway smelled of cat. It was all over him.”
Quickly, the chase is on for Madison, and Chet’s adventures begin. He’s kidnapped by brutal Russian mobsters, escapes, takes up with a biker gang and is almost put to death in an animal shelter.
He is rescued and befriended by a cute local reporter, who may or may not have Bernie’s best interests at heart. Later, using his wiles and instincts, Chet throws himself into saving his partner and best friend, Bernie.
Unlike a lot of canine-centered literature these days, “Dog On It” does not put Chet on a pedestal. He’s a dog’s dog, with certain weaknesses that all dog owners recognize, including an embarrassing lack of self-control.
But his loyalty is endearing and the best thing about Quinn’s homage to our four- legged friends and family members.
