A big thank you goes out to Michelle for sending this along to me for review!!! You are a lot of fun to work with.
TITLE: Dog on it
AUTHOR: Spencer Quinn
GENRE: Noir fiction
DATE: February 10, 2009
RATING: You decide
I have to start out this review with full disclosure - as a rule, I do not like Noir detective crime stories - which left me in an unusual situation. I was extremely curious to read this book, as it is written from the perspective of the dog (Chet) but, at the same time, I am not a fan of this genre.
The storyline starts off introducing us to the main characters of Bernie (the human) and Chet (the dog). Chet has flunked out of canine school and Bernie is not exactly a paragon of virtue, but together, they ARE the Little Detective Agency.
Bernie is hired by Cynthia Chambliss, who has a missing daughter. Before Bernie can do anything, Madisson returns with a weird tale about her whereabouts - and sounds suspicious to Bernie. However, just as he is about to let it all go, he gets a call telling him that he is back on the case - Madisson is gone again.
Chet and Bernie are back on the case.
While on surveillance on night, Chet notices something very odd - a person fitting the description of a potential witness is sniffing around, Unfortunately, Chet gets kidnapped and while he does escape, he manages to catch a glimpse of Madison.
Together Chet and Bernie try to untangle their way through a maze of fake phone calls and a mountain of useless deadends.
If the author wanted me to fall in love with the Chet character, he did a great job. I loved hearing the story unfold from the perspective of the dog - which is a very cool idea for a novel.
The writing was good and the storyline propelled ahead, but it is quite a noir story and this is where it falls off for me. Some of the dialogue sounded a little forced to me 'like someone was going to come in at any moment and start saying the word 'dame'.
On the other hand, I think this book would work very well for people who enjoy this genre.
While I did not hate this book, it also did not grab me all that much.
3 comments:
I've read other books that are told from an animal's perspective and I think it can be difficult to write. Thanks for your review.
I am not a detective reader myself but you are right it would be interesting from the perspective of the dog!
It would seem the dog point of view is the hook to reel a reader in. :)
I agree with Bermudaonion that animal points of view can be difficult to write.
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