and The Sound and the Furry. He lives on Cape Cod with his dogs Audrey and Pearl. When not keeping them out of mischief, he is hard at work on the next Chet and Bernie mystery.Quinn's new book is Paw and Order, the seventh book in the Chet and Bernie series.
Last month I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:
I recently submerged myself in Rick Atkinson’s three-part history of the fighting in World War Two. For some reason I read the books in reverse chronological order – The Guns at Last Light, The Day of Battle, An Army at Dawn. That ended up making the outcome seem inevitable, which it most certainly was not – the contrast between our mainly amateur warriors and Hitler’sVisit Chet the Dog's blog and Facebook page, and Peter Abrahams's website.professionals was huge, especially at first. The detailed recounting of so many campaigns gets a little tedious at times, but diary excerpts and letters home from the common soldiers and sailors just shine. I still call my dad every Veterans Day to thank him for his service (in the U.S. Navy).
He commanded a sub chaser in the Atlantic at the age of twenty-one, and that kind of thing wasn’t uncommon. Peggy Noonan caught the stoicism and self-discipline of those young men very well in the famous Pointe du Hoc speech (well worth a listen on YouTube). At the end of Atkinson’s trilogy, you can’t help thinking: Could anything like this happen again?The answer, not a good one, seems clearer every day. Finally, for those like me who are interested in the vast world of non-humans, there's Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien. Wesley's a real-life character, and a great one - the type of character Chet may run into one day.
The Page 69 Test: Spencer Quinn's The Dog Who Knew Too Much.
Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Audrey (September 2011).
Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Pearl (August 2012).
The Page 69 Test: Paw and Order.
--Marshal Zeringue
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