Chet and Bernie return home after their adventures in the nation’s capital, remembered simply as Foggy Bottom to Chet. Being a dog, the word bottom resonates better in Chet’s vast but sometimes slightly distorted vocabulary than something as prosaic as nation’s capital. The Nation is the Realm of Dogdom to this canine narrator who helps his private detective partner, Bernie, solve crimes.

"For dog lovers looking for whimsical summer reads, you may discover the world as seen through a dog’s nose and point of view. You’ll be amazed at what your furry friends really think about you and life in general."

A quick sniff around the house leads Chet to the home office of the Little Detective Agency, where Bernie discovers that his safe, concealed behind a suspiciously askew painting on the wall, is minus his gun and Bernie’s most prized possession, his grandfather’s repeatedly  pawnable watch. Chet’s nose helps him to suspect who was in the office while they were gone, because he smells the scent of his favorite dog friend and next-door neighbor, Iggy, on the carpet. The only person with a key to the house is Bernie’s ex-wife, Leda, so it takes Bernie’s human thinking processes a little longer to put it all together.

And so begins book eight in this delightful series that kicked off with DOG ON IT. SCENTS AND SENSIBILITY sends Chet and Bernie off on a perilous pursuit of drug smugglers, kidnappers, murderers and cactus thieves (yes, cactus thieves, a phenomenon indigenous to Arizona), all of which leads the duo to a crime ring that nearly costs them their lives.

Dogs as narrators led me to Google to see how many other fiction books were “written” by canines. Many are for children, but I was startled to discover that authors dating back at least to Virginia Woolf created novels from the dog’s point of view. Subjects range from sci-fi, horror and reincarnation, to historians, biographers and philosophers. Woolf’s cocker spaniel protagonist, Flush, observes the life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as does Maf the Dog, who divulges secrets only a dog could know about Marilyn Monroe. 

For dog lovers looking for whimsical summer reads, you may discover the world as seen through a dog’s nose and point of view. You’ll be amazed at what your furry friends really think about you and life in general.