It's a Wonderful Woof

Written by Spencer Quinn

Narrated by Jim Frangione

Spencer Quinn's It's a Wonderful Woof presents a holiday adventure for Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in crime fiction” (Boston Globe), and his human partner, PI Bernie Little.
Holiday time in the Valley, and in the holiday spirit—despite the dismal shape of the finances at the Little Detective Agency—Bernie refers a potential client to Victor Klovsky, a fellow private eye. It’s also true that the case—promising lots of
online research but little action—doesn’t appeal to Bernie, while it seems perfect for Victor, who is not cut out for rough stuff. But Victor disappears in a rough-stuff way, and when he doesn’t show up at his mom’s to light the Hanukkah candles, she hires Chet and Bernie to find him.
They soon discover that Victor’s client has also vanished. The trail leads to the ruins of a mission called Nuestra Señora de los Saguaros, dating back to the earliest Spanish explorers. Some very dangerous people are interested in the old
mission. Does some dusty archive hold the secret of a previously unknown art treasure, possibly buried for centuries? What does the Flight into Egypt—when Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus fled Herod—have to do with saguaros, the Sonoran desert cactus?
No one is better than Chet at nosing out buried secrets, but before he can, he and Bernie are forced to take flight themselves, chased through a Christmas Eve blizzard by a murderous foe who loves art all too much.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705020340

Spencer Quinn

Spencer Quinn is the bestselling author of eight Chet and Bernie mystery series, as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series for middle-grade readers. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana—and dogs Audrey and Pearl. Keep up with him by visiting SpenceQuinn.com.

Reviews for It's a Wonderful Woof

[montzaleew · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a Wonderful Woof(Chet and Bernie Mystery #12)by Spencer QuinnI really enjoyed this mystery! A great story with plenty of action, wit, humor, suspense, and with Chet the dog as story teller! I love how Bernie and Chet work as a team.

[maydacat_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bernie is approached by a prospective client for a job. It’s not a good fit for Bernie, so he refers the client to a friend. But when that PI turns up missing, Bernie gets hired by his friend’s mother to find him. Feeling responsible, Bernie goes all out in delving into a missing person case that turns out to be so much more. Before long, dead bodies are littering the trail. A very old and hidden art treasure is at the heart of the mystery, and time is running out. Fortunately for everyone involved, Bernie has his faithful dog Chet at his side. Chet, and his superb canine sense of smell, is vital to solving this case. This engrossing mystery is made even better by the doggy narration of Chet, who though more intelligent than some people I’ve met, still only sees the world through his canine eyes. And that does make for some interesting interpretations! This well written novel, in fact the entire series, is highly recommended.

[liscarey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's the holiday season, even in Arizona, and Chet and Bernie have a new case walking in the door. Lauritz Vogler, a man with an unfamiliar accent who describes himself as "Mittel European Goulash," offer Bernie a $5,000 retainer to investigate a matter concerned with Baroque art. This isn't Bernie's kind of case, and Christmas is coming. It seems like it's an excellent case for fellow P.I. Victor Klovsky. Victor is the timid type and prefers to avoid direct conflict, but he's a whiz at online research, and this case seems right up his alley. Bernie refers Vogner to Victor.A couple of days later, he gets a call from Victor's mother, saying that Victor is missing.What follows is an adventure in Baroque art, the history of a now-deconsecrated church in the valley, and an artist of the early Baroque period who was long ignored, but now gaining in reputation and significance. Dangerous men are looking for a possible lost masterpiece, and Victor isn't the only man who's disappeared.Meanwhile, in trying to uphold his professional standards, specifically not revealing the name of a client, Bernie seems to have made a wrong step in his still-new relationship with Police Sergeant Weatherly Wauneka. She sees it as a lack of trust, and doesn't want to find herself competing with Bernie on a case. Are they going to be able to work through this?Along the way, Bernie spends weekends with his son, six-year-old Charlie, decorates Christmas trees, finds the body of a man who appears to have been tortured, and wrecks another Porsche. It's Chet and Bernie through and through, and still a lot of fun.Recommended.I bought this audiobook.

[hcnewton · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.---WHAT'S IT'S A WONDERFUL WOOF ABOUT?Someone comes to the Little Detective Agency to hire them, but it's just not the kind of case that calls for Bernie's strengths, but he knows just the right guy for the job, Victor Klovsky. The two had recently run into each other on different cases, and Bernie's been reminded that Victor isn't cut out for the more, shall we say, physically demanding cases—but he's great at the stuff you can do behind a desk, which is what this case calls for.Also, I think Bernie feels sorry for the guy and thinks he can do him a favor by sending work his way to make up for the way things went during that recent encounter.You know what they say about roads and best intentions, though. It's not long before Victor has gone missing—a very concerned mother (who has less confidence in his abilities than Bernie does) hires Chet and Bernie to find him. It turns out that not only Victor is missing, but his client is, too.There's nothing about this case that suggests a cushy desk job anymore—a strong sense of violence surrounds the disappearances—and other elements of the case as it develops. Can Chet and Bernie sniff out what happened to them, and what the relationship is between these disappearances, Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt, Caravaggio, and an old Spanish mission?RELATIONSHIP ISSUESThis is news to no one that has read one book in this series, but Bernie's not good at relationships. Expressing himself to a woman he cares about is not a skill he possesses (I'm sure Chet would differ with me here, but I stand by it).His current relationship is still pretty new—and seems to be going pretty well. But that's all stuff that happened since Tender is the Bite. It doesn't take him too long to mess things up with Weatherly. Both his reaction to this throughout the novel and the way it started felt different than the way he'd put his foot into it with Suzi (but not completely). The relationships between Bernie and the two women are notably different—which is a relief, too often in situations like this it feels like a duplicate of a previous romance.A VERY BERNIE CHRISTMAS?It would be very easy to forget that this is a Christmas/Holiday Themed novel—I did more than once, and I was expressly looking to see how Quinn dealt with it.However, when the holidays do come up? It's great. There's a Hannukah scene that I just loved, and...well there are a couple of great other scenes about the holidays, but my no-spoiler policy stops me from getting into those.LANGUAGE CHOICEThis isn't a big deal—I don't want to make a proverbial mountain out of anything. But it struck me that Bernie's language is a bit stronger than usual. I don't want to take the time and do word counts or anything—I'm lazy and I'm not going to buy e-copies just to document this point. This book is still PG-13, but it jumped out at me and struck me as different—and I'm curious about it.SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT IT'S A WONDERFUL WOOF?I had a blast with this—there was a time 5 or 6 books ago, that my interest in the series waned a bit—I still enjoyed the books, but they didn't grab me the way the initial novels did. That's gone, and I have to wonder what was wrong with me—Quinn and Chet are as fresh and entertaining now as they were in Dog Gone It.There's heart, there's excitement, there's humor, there's the devotion that only a dog can have for their human, and you even can even learn a little bit about art history. Throw in a little holiday magic and you've got yourself another winner in this series.Go read this—which readers of this series probably don't need me to say. But if you haven't read any before, this functions well enough as a jumping-on point, just be prepared to make some time for the previous 11 novels. You're going to want to read them all.

[jetangen4571 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

private-investigators, dog, urban-fantasy, situational-humor, snarky, family, friendship, law-enforcement, missing-persons, verbal-humor*****Chet relates the story from his point of view as a failed K-9 but ace PI working with his buddy Bernie who is the human PI of this pair. I really don't think that reading the earlier books is necessary to enjoying the fun and sleuthing in this story. The publisher's blurb is a good hook, so get ready to laugh your sox off while Chet and Bernie save the day!I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy from Macmillan-Tor/Forge Forge Books via NetGalley. Thank you!