To Fetch A Thief

To Fetch A Thief (#469) is the third book in Spencer Quinn's wonderful Chet and Bernie mystery series. (See also my posts of 8/29/14 & 8/14/15.) Chet's take on what is happening over the course of their investigation of a Little Detective Agency case is unique and quite, quite funny.  Chet is a complete professional, but if a squirrel should wander by, or a he detects a scrap of leftover food, well, he can't help but be distracted; after all, he is a dog.

In To Fetch a Thief, Bernie and Chet are hired for a divorce case, not a favorite of either of this pair of investigators, but hey, the bills have to be paid.  When the case turns personal for Bernie, he's not quite sure what to do about it.  In the meantime, though, his client has given him a couple of tickets for the circus that's in town, and that's the perfect outing to take his son Charlie on, especially since Charlie is studying elephants in school.  The problem is that when they arrive at the fairgrounds, the circus won't be performing that night.  It seems that the star of the show, Peanut the elephant, and her trainer Uri DeLeath, have both gone missing.  Everyone at the circus claims they didn't see or hear anything during the night the pair vanished.  Popo the clown hires Bernie to find out what happened to them, since he doesn't believe for a moment that Uri and Peanut left voluntarily.  Chet and Bernie have unwittingly taken on one of the most dangerous cases in their career and there's no guarantee either of them will come out of this alive.  Snakes!  Ugh!!!

Spencer Quinn does an excellent job setting up the plot twists in To Fetch A Thief, and making sure that solving this case truly does involve the unique skills of both Bernie, the human half and Chet, the canine partner.  Neither would have been able to do it alone.  Between the nail-biting situations and the comic relief provided by Chet, this devoted pair of partners provide the complete package for an entertaining read.