My mother, the glamorous and much-married actress, is hearing wedding bells once again—which is why she must hop across the pond for a quickie divorce in Reno. To offer my moral support, and since all expenses are paid by her new hubby-to-be, Max, I agree to make the voyage with her.
Crossing the Atlantic, with adventure in the air and wealthy men aboard, Mother all but forgets about Max and matrimony—especially when movie mogul Cy Goldman insists on casting her in his next picture.
Meanwhile, I find myself caught up in the secret investigation of a suspected jewel thief. Lucky for me, the lead investigator happens to be my dashing beau, Darcy!
Mother’s movie and Darcy’s larceny lead everyone to Cy’s Hollywood home, where the likes of Charlie Chaplin are hanging about and there’s enough romantic intrigue to fill a double feature. But we hardly get a chance to work out the sleeping arrangements before Cy turns up dead—as if there wasn’t enough drama already…
Stephen King has called Chet "a canine Sam Spade full of joie de vivre." Robert B. Parker dubbed Spencer Quinn's writing "major league prose." Now the beloved team returns in another suspenseful novel that finds Chet sniffing around the capital city and using his street smarts to uncover a devilish plot.
Chet and Bernie pay a visit to Bernie's girlfriend, Suzie Sanchez, a crack reporter living in far-off Washington, DC. She's working on a big story she can't talk about, but when her source, a mysterious Brit with possible intelligence connections, runs into trouble of the worst kind, Bernie suddenly finds himself under arrest.
Meanwhile Chet gets to know a powerful DC operative who may or may not have the goods on an ambitious politician. Soon Chet and Bernie are sucked into an international conspiracy, battling unfamiliar forces under the blinking red eyes of a strange bird that Chet notices from the get-go but seems to have slipped by everybody else. Most menacing of all is Barnum, a guinea pig with the fate of the nation in his tiny paws.
As Harry Truman famously quipped, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." Too bad he didn't get to meet Chet.
Margaret says:
"Chet and Bernie are back with another mystery from a dog's point of view. Chet is unswervingly loyal to Bernie and a faithful narrator, always reporting the facts as he sees them. After finishing a job in Louisiana, Bernie decides to surprise his girlfriend Susie in Washington D.C. before heading back home. He is the one surprised when he sees a man, Eben, leave Susie's home. Eben is murdered and Bernie arrested, though he is quickly sprung to solve the crime. Chet doesn't understand many things, such as why he can't smell the donkeys and elephants, and what is with that funny bird without feathers that goes whirr, whirr. As always, Chet looks forward to grabbing the perp by the pants leg and sending him or her off to break big rocks in the hot sun.
My favorite part about this series is that Chet is a real dog, focused as much on Slim Jims and squirrels as solving crimes."
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