Wednesday, October 27, 2021

It's a Wonderful Woof (Chet and Bernie Mystery #12), by Spencer Quinn (author), Jim Frangione (narrator)

Recorded Books, ISBN 9781705020340, October 2021

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.

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