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In the third book in the brilliant New York Times bestselling series featuring a lovable and wise dog narrator, Chet and Bernie go under the big top to solve the most unlikely missing persons (and animals!) case ever. Chet has smelled a lot of unusual things in his years as trusted companion and partner to P.I. Bernie Little, but nothing has prepared him for the exotic scents he encounters when an old-fashioned traveling circus comes to town. Bernie scores tickets to this less-than-greatest show more show-on-earth because his son Charlie is crazy about elephants. The only problem is that Peanut, the headlining pachyderm of this particular one-ring circus, has gone missing-along with her trainer, Uri DeLeath. Stranger still, no one saw them leave. How does an elephant vanish without a trace? At first there's nothing Bernie and Chet can do-it's a police matter and they have no standing in the case. But then they're hired by Popo the Clown, who has his own reasons for wanting to find out what has become of the mysteriously missing duo. After Chet takes a few sniffs in Peanut's trailer and picks up her one-of-a-kind scent, he and Bernie are in hot pursuit, heading far away from the bright lights of the traveling show and into the dark desert night. Some very dangerous people would prefer that Chet and Bernie disappear for good and will go to any lengths to make that happen. Across the border in Mexico and separated from Bernie, Chet must use all his natural strength and doggy smarts to try to save himself-not to mention Bernie and a decidedly uncooperative Peanut, too. To Fetch a Thief shows why readers everywhere have fallen head-over-paws in love with the Chet and Bernie mystery series. Top-notch suspense, humor, and insight into the ways our canine companions think and behave make this the most entertaining and irresistible book in the series yet. show lessTags
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I'm a sucker for books with dogs in them, especially when the book is told from the dog's point of view, but it has to be done well and by someone who knows dogs.
Peter Abrahams, who writes as Spencer Quinn, is a dog guy who knows how to write. I've been a fan since I listened to 'Dog On It' the first Chet and Bernie mystery as an audiobook. Sadly, I can no longer get audiobook versions of this series in the UK so I read the second book, 'Thereby Hangs A Tail' as an ebook and still had a lot of fun with it, so I decided to stick with the series. I'm glad I did, because 'To Fetch A Thief' is the best book yet.
Chet is always the hero of his own story although he and Bernie, the PI he lives with, work as a team to bring down the bad guys. show more Bernie does the talking and the thinking while Chet does the interesting things like the sniffing and the chasing and the grabbing hold with his teeth and not letting go until the bad guy is cuffed.
In 'To Fetch A Thief', Chet and Bernie go undercover in a carnival to solve the mystery of the missing star attraction. Someone has made Peanut the elephant disappear.
The book is populated with larger than life humans, even by carnival standards, that I could cheer for or hiss at with equal enthusiasm. The plot is far-fetched but moves fast enough not to give you time to think about anything except what will happen next.
The best thing about the book is getting to live inside Chet's head for a while. Chet's pretty smart for a dog but that doesn't stop him being 100% dog. He lives for finding food, following new smells (you would not believe what an elephant smells like) and for bringing down the bad guys with Bernie.
As the whole story is told from Chet's point of view, the success of the book depends on how well Spencer-Quinn writes Chet. Personally, I love it. Spencer-Quinn captures Chet's joy and optimism in a way that's contagious and that makes me laugh without ever belittling Chet. Here's an example of how Chet thinks. He listens to this piece of dialogue:
“Colonel Drummond said you can buy an elephant for ten grand.”
“Colonel Drummond,” said Popo, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest, “is one of those people who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
This is Chet's reaction:
The price of everything and the value of nothing? I turned that over in my mind. It turned over a couple of times and then went away.
Here's an example of how Chet and Bernie work together. Bernie has made a breakthrough and is driving the bad guy's Semi with the bad guy as his prisoner:
We drove through the darkness, Bernie at the wheel with the gun in his belt, me in the shotgun seat, Jocko on the floor, maybe a tiny bit uncomfortable. “Any food on board, Jocko?” Bernie said.
Good question. Could I think of a better one? No.
“I got nothin’ to say,” Jocko said.
“Is that the kind of loser you want to be?”
“Huh?”
“We take down a lot of losers in this business,” Bernie said. “Ends up there are only two kinds—losers who want to keep losing and losers who want to cut their losses. Guess which ones get the most jail time.”
I thought about that and was pretty close to making up my mind when the whole problem kind of went away, and I felt better. And that better was on top of how good I was already feeling, back with Bernie.
I love that, when Bernie says 'We take down a lot of losers...', the 'we' he's talking about is him and Chet. That Bernie sees them as a team just as much as Chet does speaks well of both of them. And I love that Chet almost follows a thought through and then lets it go to appreciate his own happiness.
Then there are the discoveries Chet makes, like this one when bullets shatter their car's wing mirror and window.
Hey! Mirrors were glass? And windows, too? I came close to having a thought about that.
And then there's the way Chet's emotions arrive somewhere before his thoughts do, like this scene at the end of the book:
Some sort of strong emotion began appearing on Suzie’s face. A breeze sprang up behind me. I looked back. My tail was wagging like crazy. I must have been happy about something.
If you're looking to escape from everything and live in a better place for a few hours, pick up this book and take a ride in Chet's head. You'll feel better for it. show less
Chet Saves Bernie's Bacon. Again.
This was my second Chet and Bernie. Again, enjoyable. Sometimes these books can start to get silly, but then things can take a hardcore turn for the worse as Bernie and / or Chet find themselves in precarious and deadly situations. And oftentimes the stories begin to drag, but as soon as they do Chet usually chimes in with one of his endless reminiscences like:
"Presto was a word Bernie sometimes used, like just before turning the key that time he was jump-starting the DA's car. The DA had a fire extinguisher in the trunk, so there turned out to be no problem."
With Chet's mind wandering all over the place with random thoughts, you never know what's going to come next before it snaps back to the task, show more nay, job at hand; before he gets his head back on the case. For me, the writing is good and the subtle humor throughout make these stories worth reading. Here are a couple more passages / samples / examples from To Fetch A Thief that I liked:
"Bernie said. 'Best Chinese food in the Valley - ten to one that's where he's going.' Chinese food's a big subject, no time for it now, but there's something called pineapple chicken balls that's hard to beat. Meanwhile, Winkleman kept going. A restaurant with lanterns in the window went by and Bernie said, 'Owe you ten,' losing me completely."
[And.]
"We met Popo in the lobby of this old hotel called Copperman's in the West Valley. I knew Copperman's from a case we'd worked on long ago, all about a Japanese restaurant and some stolen tuna. We found the tuna, but too late - I knew that before we even got out of the car on that last day." show less
This was my second Chet and Bernie. Again, enjoyable. Sometimes these books can start to get silly, but then things can take a hardcore turn for the worse as Bernie and / or Chet find themselves in precarious and deadly situations. And oftentimes the stories begin to drag, but as soon as they do Chet usually chimes in with one of his endless reminiscences like:
"Presto was a word Bernie sometimes used, like just before turning the key that time he was jump-starting the DA's car. The DA had a fire extinguisher in the trunk, so there turned out to be no problem."
With Chet's mind wandering all over the place with random thoughts, you never know what's going to come next before it snaps back to the task, show more nay, job at hand; before he gets his head back on the case. For me, the writing is good and the subtle humor throughout make these stories worth reading. Here are a couple more passages / samples / examples from To Fetch A Thief that I liked:
"Bernie said. 'Best Chinese food in the Valley - ten to one that's where he's going.' Chinese food's a big subject, no time for it now, but there's something called pineapple chicken balls that's hard to beat. Meanwhile, Winkleman kept going. A restaurant with lanterns in the window went by and Bernie said, 'Owe you ten,' losing me completely."
[And.]
"We met Popo in the lobby of this old hotel called Copperman's in the West Valley. I knew Copperman's from a case we'd worked on long ago, all about a Japanese restaurant and some stolen tuna. We found the tuna, but too late - I knew that before we even got out of the car on that last day." show less
When an elephant and her handler go missing from a circus, it is cancelled to the disappointment of PI Bernie and his son, Charlie. However, since Bernie shows up before he knows about the cancellation, he chats with the police detective who is there to find out more. Later on, Bernie (and his dog Chet, whose POV the book is from) are hired by the handler’s partner (and the circus’s clown) to find out what happened, since the police are treating this as the handler simply having taken the elephant to get away from the circus.
I really liked this one. As always, it’s fun (and sometimes humourous) to read from Chet’s perspective. This one was extra interesting to me with the animal welfare/cruelty angle of circuses.
I really liked this one. As always, it’s fun (and sometimes humourous) to read from Chet’s perspective. This one was extra interesting to me with the animal welfare/cruelty angle of circuses.
This series is good for cute, light reading. I find myself grinning at Chet's narration and Quinn strikes the right balance of keeping Chet smart and yet still fundamentally a dog who can't quite help himself from being won over by treats and praise or overcome by tangential thoughts of why anyone would *save* bacon or chasing wild geese when humans start talking in metaphors.
I only read this book because a neighbor pressed it on me. Normally, I would stay away from a book with a dog as a narrator. But 40 pages in, I was surprised to find that I was enjoying myself. Quinn does a very nice job with Chet the dog's persona, amusingly making him lose the track of his thoughts mid-stream and become confused by his partner Bernie's (the human private detective) use of idioms while telling the story of the case at hand, the theft of an elephant from a small circus. So it's all fun, the both dog and human are likeable characters, and the storyline is good, too. The only problem is that Chet's digressions are pretty much continuous, as you would expect them to be, and this sometimes slows down the story, occasionally show more making me wish for a human narrator. All in all, though, if this sort of whimsey seems your cup of tea, I would say this series might be worth your time. To Fetch a Thief is the third in Quinn's "Chet and Bernie" series. I'm not going to make a point to read any more right away. On the other hand, I had no trouble jumping in in the middle of the series. show less
Another excellent adventure from Chet and Bernie's detective agency, in which Chet regards himself as a full partner - and rightly so. Mind you, Bernie sounds pretty dishy too but I'm only going by Chet's opinion and Chet loves Bernie as much as I love Chet. The third in the series, a well-written mystery with the added appeal of being presented from the canine point of view.
Private detective Bernie Little and his intrepid canine companion Chet investigate the disappearance of an elephant and his trainer from a rundown circus. In addition, Bernie must deal with an ethical dilemma involving his shrewish ex-wife. To say much more would be to ruin the surprises of Spencer Quinn's third entry in this engaging mystery series.
Granted, the dog's eye view can sometimes grate this third time around; Chet's misunderstandings and foibles were more endearing when they were fresh in Dog on It, the first book in this series. However, To Fetch a Thief contains enough action, suspense, clever plotting and laughs that you'll soon forget any irritation. Here's to hoping that Chet and Bernie stay partners for a long, long time.
Granted, the dog's eye view can sometimes grate this third time around; Chet's misunderstandings and foibles were more endearing when they were fresh in Dog on It, the first book in this series. However, To Fetch a Thief contains enough action, suspense, clever plotting and laughs that you'll soon forget any irritation. Here's to hoping that Chet and Bernie stay partners for a long, long time.
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When Peanut, the elephant star of the Drummond Family Traveling Circus, goes missing, along with elephant tamer Uri DeLeath, Uri's tearful clown partner, Popo, seeks the help of canine detective Chet the Jet and Chet's human partner in cracking crimes, Bernie Little of the Little Detective Agency, in Quinn's terrific third Chet and Bernie mystery set in "the Valley" of an unnamed Western state show more (after January 2010's Thereby Hangs a Tail). Sgt. Rick Torres of Missing Persons adds his considerable expertise, but it's Chet's fearless nose for clues that leads them on a strange odyssey that becomes downright hairy after Uri's found dead in the desert from the bite of an illegal African puff adder. Quinn, the pseudonym of suspense author Peter Abrahams (End of Story), radiates pure comedic genius via Chet's doggy bright narrative. You don't have to be a dog lover to enjoy this deliciously addictive series. show less
added by cmwilson101
The most winning detective duo since Shaggy met Scooby.
added by cmwilson101
Chet the dog is the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction, and he doesn’t disappoint in this third installment in the series. Neither does Quinn, and he keeps the suspense churning as our heroes investigate a missing person—and an elephant.
added by cmwilson101
Author Information
64+ Works 14,562 Members
Peter Abrahams was born in Boston, Massachusetts on June 28, 1947. His works include Lights Out, The Fan, Crying Wolf, and Oblivion. He also writes the Echo Falls Mysteries Series for younger readers. He was the winner of the 2010 Edgar Award, Best Young Adult Mystery for Reality Check. In addition, he writes the Chet and Bernie Mystery Series show more under the pseudonym Spencer Quinn. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- To Fetch a Thief
- Original publication date
- 2010-09
- People/Characters
- Bernie Little; Chet [The Jet, Dog]; Charlie Little; Leda Little; Suzie; Colonel Drummond (show all 7); Peanut, the elephant
- Important places
- The Valley (California desert?); San Anselmo, California, USA; Mexico
- Dedication
- This book is dedicated to Diana
- First words
- "I smell trouble," Bernie said.
Better stop right there. Not that I doubt Bernie. The truth is, I believe everything he says. And he has such a nice big nose for a human. but what's that saying? Not much. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Some sort of strong emotion began appearing on Suzie's face. A breeze sprang up behind me. I looked back. My tail was wagging like crazy. I must have been happy about something.
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- Reviews
- 37
- Rating
- (3.82)
- Languages
- English
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- ISBNs
- 17
- ASINs
- 8
