"Tender Is the Bite" A Chet and Bernie series By Spencer Quinn: Review/Giveaway

 Review by Sandra Murphy

 Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and links to purchase it.

Chet and Bernie are back and better than ever. It’s an election year and Bernie’s two elderly neighbors have dueling yard signs: one blue candidate, one red. Each of them wants to sway Bernie to their chosen one. 

Even in rush hour traffic moving at a crawl, Bernie can tell when he and Chet are being followed. It’s an amateur job, but the potential client rushes off before they can find out what she wanted. Bernie’s curious and follows the slim clues even though there’s technically no client. Bernie says he and Chet are partners and Chet has to agree. Bernie, being human, is always the smartest human in the room. Chet, being a dog, brings other things to the table. There may have been a few incidents in the past, one involving a cat, one a horse, but it’s better to focus on the present. 

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It seems like for every clue they find, someone disappears. First the wanna-be client. Her friend talked, minimally, to Bernie one day, was gone the next. Also missing is Griffie, a pet ferret. It was love at first sight when Griffie saw Bernie. Chet was not amused. 

A two-bit hoodlum is in the mix but can’t be found, until he was, and then he too, disappeared. The new police captain is sure Bernie had something to do with that. Thanks to Chet, Bernie’s one step ahead of the captain. 

When a determined pair of private detectives like Chet and Bernie are on your trail, one trick to try is to offer simple work at an outrageous amount of money and the job is far away. Chet and Bernie can’t be bought! 

With foreign entities involved, politics, missing women, a missing hoodlum, a guy who suddenly won’t take your calls, and a missing ferret, what else could go wrong? In Chet and Bernie’s line of work, an awful lot. Will Chet be able to catch the perp? Will Bernie unravel the tangled clues to find out who’s behind what? 

Bernie may be able to connect the dots for the plot and Chet certainly knows where the bodies are buried, but can he learn to work with a ferret? 

This is book eleven in the series. The stories are told from Chet’s point of view and the point of view of a dog is totally different than that of a person. Also, he’s easily distracted. It’s a challenge for an author to tell a story this way. Chet is able to find clues, knows they are important, but he’s unable to tell Bernie after the fact. 

New characters are introduced and I have a feeling they’ll be around for a while. Look for the next Chet and Bernie adventure, It’s a Wonderful Woof, shipping in mid-October, available for pre-order now.   

To enter to win a copy of Tender Is the Bite, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line "tender,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen August 21, 2021. US residents only and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win. If entering via comment please include your email address so we can contact you. BE AWARE THAT DUE TO THE CURRENT CRISIS THERE MAY BE A DELAY IN SHIPPING THE WINNING BOOK. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section in Kings River Life and in our mystery category here on KRL News & Reviews. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. And check out our new mystery podcast which features mystery short stories and first chapters read by local actors!

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The Solace of Bay Leaves

Sandra Murphy lives in the shadow of the Arch in St. Louis Missouri. She writes about eco-friendly topics, pets and wildlife for magazines and reviews mysteries and thrillers for KRL. A collection of her short stories, published by Untreed Reads, From Hay to Eternity: Ten Tales of Crime and Deception can be found at all the usual outlets. Each one is a little weird and all have a twist you won't see coming.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.