Thereby Hangs a Tail - Spencer Quinn

Published by Allen & Unwin/Arena Books: Australia, 2010.
Book 2 of the 'A Chet & Bernie Mystery' series.

The limitations of the Alphabet Soup challenge were a little more prominent with this pick, as there are not all that many 'Q' authors in the Tasman District Library (and it looks as though 'X' will be even more restrictive). Also, Book 1 of the series was on loan, so I leapt straight into this one, Book 2, for my first taste of the series. However, this was a fun little read to discover despite all that.

A detective story with a twist, Thereby Hangs a Tail is told from the perspective of Chet, the dog of Private Investigator Bernie Little. Chet is not some super-intelligent sleuth or wonder-dog - he is just a regular dog that believes his human to be the 'smartest man in the room' at all times, and tries to support Bernie as the duo solve the case Bernie has been assigned.

The mystery in this book regards a threat made against a prize show-dog. At first it is unclear whether the threat is real at all, but before too long the dog and two humans go missing - presumably kidnapped - and the case begins.

Being a dog, Chet can't always interpret what is going on as well as a human would be able to. A phrase such as "you look like something the cat dragged in" becomes a discussion in Chet's head about how such a thing could possibly happen, and often during a scene Chet will get distracted as humans chat, zoning out to reminisce about some memory involving earlier adventures. Chet also (at least in this book) stumbles across the answers to various parts of the mystery long before Bernie does, but is unable to tell Bernie of this (or indeed often is unable to tell the importance of what he has witnessed for himself). This means that for a good portion of the book the reader has some information that neither of the main characters yet know - an interesting twist on a mystery.

The book is quite funny in patches, usually because of Chet's take on the situation, but also is not a 'watered-down' detective story in any way - there is occasional language, violence, and Chet even stumbles across a dead body at one point. Nothing too gory, though.

This is also my first exposure to what is apparently a sub-genre: the animal detective story. Bizarre.

Worth a read I reckon.

Completed 6 March 2022.



(Alphabet Soup Books)



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