Bernie Little and his dog, Chet, are partners in the Little Detective Agency. When they are stopped at a red light, Bernie recognizes an old friend from high school, who has fallen on very hard times. He tries to help the guy, who will have little to do with him. Bernie feels guilty and tried to approach the situation obliquely, going to the homeless camp where Rocket lives and meeting some of the residents there. Chet uncovers a vital clue, buried inside Rocket's tent. Meanwhile, no one knows where Rocket is, so Bernie decides to find him and protect him. He contacts many folks from his old high school, who might have an interest in finding Rocket as well. The investigation leads Bernie deep into the past, a past he really did not know as well as he thought he did. Chet is always the star and rightly so, he is the best partner a PI can have.

Each Chet and Bernie book by Spencer Quinn is better than the previous one. While trying to help an old high school baseball teammate, the duo run into more classmates from the past and a mystery of course. The setting for this one, Skeleton Canyon, is vividly described and the characters, both human and animal are excellent.

Bernie and Chey are one of my favorite duos. This time Bernie has run into an old high school friend who ends up missing. With his usual wit and charm this book is an utter delight to read! Thanks #netgalley and #MacMillam-Tor/Forge for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

Bernie Little and Chet the Jet, the dog partner of the Little Detective Agency, meet up with an old Chisholm High School baseball teammate, Rocket Saluka, who is very down on his luck. Bernie takes him out for burgers, and Rocket shows Bernie a distinctive pocketknife with a skull featuring green eyes. When Bernie goes back to find him the next day, he is not there. While looking for Rocket, he meets people presently at the school and former teammates and people from his past including his prom date and his coach. Then someone else dies who knew Rocket. Readers get to see something of Bernie as a shy teenager who was a talented pitcher. As usual, Chet narrates the story with humor and warmth, and I chuckled that the shady science teacher is named Kepler, but Chet also reminds readers of the sides of human nature too. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have loved all the Bernie and Chet books, devouring them with gusto. This one was a little underwhelming, though the cuteness of the dog narrator remains. However, it was hard to follow Bernie's actions as they seemed unrelated to each other and I was following separate threads of action that weren't connected. That made me want to flip quickly through the book to get to the heart of the matter. the charazters were unpersuasive in terms of interest, and I missed the quirkiness of the previous books. But still a good read. .

Another fun entry in the Chet and Bernie series. This time out the detective duo are going about their every day duties (with the usual unique world observations from Chet the dog along the way), when they chance upon an old school acquaintance of Bernie's, living as a street person. When he goes missing, Bernie takes it on himself (and his faithful sidekick) to find out what's happening.
As always, the story is just a small part of the fun of the book. More than any other series, it's all about the characters. As the series continues the call backs become more and more frequent and the remembering of them slightly more misaligned.
Chet and Bernie are one of the most fun to read partnerships in crime fiction today and I wait for each new book to arrive.
If you haven't tried one yet, you're missing out.