Fresh from cracking a hard case in the Big Easy, Chet and Bernie leave the bayous of The Sound and the Furry and head for D.C. In Spencer Quinn's seventh PI-plus-canine partner mystery, the duo gets to Foggy Bottom just as old friend Suzie Sanchez needs them to impose some Paw and Order on a deadly situation.
Bernie Little and Chet, his four-legged partner, are both sweet on Suzie, who left them in Arizona to write for the Washington Post. Happy to see her surprise visitors but preoccupied with work, she takes Chet along to meet a source for a story on an aspiring candidate for the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Unfortunately, they arrive to find the informant expired--setting Chet's experienced nose to work and drawing the Little Detective Agency into its next case.
Chet isn't a talking dog but a thinking (and very funny) narrator, so the reader knows the big picture even if Bernie doesn't. The duo pursues the case in Bernie's latest Porsche; readers following the series will know this isn't the original, but, as Chet would say, "That's a story for another time."
Chet and Bernie, as usual, find themselves at the heart of a knotty case, leading from back-alley bars to political fund-raisers to Virginia horse country. Quinn adds another layer to enigmatic Bernie's history--we learn he attended Annapolis and fought in Iraq. Close calls, Russian spies and a nasty guinea pig don't deter the Little Detective Agency and, as man and dog close the case with Suzie's help, readers will wonder where the Porsche is headed next. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco