Spencer Quinn books in order

LeAnne Hogan went to Afghanistan as a rising star in the military, and came back a much lesser person, mentally and physically. Now missing an eye and with half her face badly scarred, she can barely remember the disastrous desert operation that almost killed her. She is confused, angry, and suspects the fault is hers, even though nobody will come out and say it.

Shattered by one last blow—the sudden death of her hospital roommate, Marci—LeAnne finds herself on a fateful drive across the country, reflecting on her past and seeing no future. Her native land is now unfamiliar, recast in shadow by her one good eye, her damaged psyche, her weakened body. Arriving in the rain-soaked small town in Washington State that Marci called home, she makes a troubling discovery: Marci’s eight-year-old daughter has vanished. 

When a stray dog—a powerful, dark, unreadable creature, no one’s idea of a pet—seems to adopt LeAnne, a surprising connection is formed and something shifts inside her. As she becomes obsessed with finding Marci’s daughter, LeAnne and her inscrutable canine companion are drawn into danger as dark and menacing as her last Afghan mission. This time she has a strange but loyal fellow traveler protecting her blind side.

Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a recent widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn’t changed her killer tennis game one bit.

One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who desperately needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam. Of course, Loretta obliges—after all, what are grandmothers for, even grandmothers who still haven’t gotten a simple “thank you” for a gift sent weeks ago. Not that she's counting.

By morning, Mrs. Plansky has lost everything. Law enforcement announces that Loretta's life savings have vanished, and that it’s hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist. First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just another victim.

In a courageous bid for justice, Mrs. Plansky follows her only clue on a whirlwind adventure to a small village in Romania to get her money and her dignity back—and perhaps find a new lease on life, too.

This collection of short stories of Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe), and his human partner, PI Bernie Little includes: Upper Story, The Iggy Papers, and The Numbers After Two, plus a sneak peek at the next installment of the series, Bark to the Future.

There is trouble brewing in the Louisiana swamp -- Bowser can smell it. Bowser is a very handsome and only slightly slobbery dog, and he can smell lots of things. Like bacon. And rawhide chews! And the sweat on humans when they're lying.

Birdie Gaux, the girl Bowser lives with, also knows something is wrong. It's not just that her grammy's stuffed prize marlin has been stolen. It's the weird rumor that the marlin is linked to a missing treasure. It's the truck that seems to be following Birdie and the bad feeling on the back of her neck.

When Birdie and Bowser start digging into the mystery, not even Bowser's powerful sniffer can smell just how menacing the threat is. And when the danger comes straight for Birdie, Bowser knows it up to him to sic 'em.

Why would anyone break into 19 Gentilly Lane? That's where the Gaux family lives, and everyone knows they have nothing worth stealing. More important, the house is usually guarded by Birdie Gaux's dog, Bowser, a large and handsome fellow with a big set of sharp teeth.

Now Birdie is looking worried and Bowser is on the trail of something rotten. Who was behind the break in? Why is a girl with green hair asking odd questions about what happened to Birdie's dad, a policeman who was killed in the line of duty years ago? 

Worst of all, why is the whole town starting to stink of limeade aftershave and CAT?!? The death of Birdie's father may be a cold case, but Bowser can tell it's heating up fast. Someone is coming after Birdie and her family, and Bowser must be ready to protect them from anything. Even that awful cat.

A bull shark in the swamp? No one in the Louisiana town of St. Roch believes it at first, but when a local boy has a face-to-face encounter with the toothy monster, every big fisherman is called out for the hunt. There's a big cash bounty on the shark.

Sharp-eyed Birdie Gaux and her handsome dog Bowser can't help noticing that shark fever is causing some shady doings in town. For instance, where is Snoozy, the clerk who works at the Gaux family fishing store? He's the town's best fisherman, but suddenly he's missing. Is a rival bounty hunter behind Snoozy's suspicious disappearance? Or perhaps the marine biologist who said he'll do anything to keep the shark alive?

Birdie and Bowser are determined to find Snoozy and bring him home safe, but the job is more dangerous than they know. Bowser better practice his paddling: He and Birdie are heading for deep waters...

Author Spencer Quinn reveals how everyone’s favorite detective duo—Chet the Dog and P.I. Bernie Little—came to meet before their first big case in Dog On It.

As fans know, Chet first met Bernie on that fateful day when he flunked out of K-9 police school. The details of that day though have always remained a little vague (like so much in Chet’s doggy brain). All we know is that Chet had been the best leaper in his K-9 class, but for some reason he failed his final leaping test...and that a cat was involved...and that there was some blood. But whose? The test, the cat, the blood—all pieces of a puzzle that, when solved, will bring down a dangerous gang of thieves—and signal the start of a beautiful friendship.

This fateful day has been alluded to in every book in the series, and now fans of Chet and Bernie will finally get to find out what actually happened. For these two beloved characters, it was something like love at first sight—and, for Chet, at first smell, too.

Chet and Bernie—everybody’s favorite human-canine detective team—are asked by a beautiful woman to find evidence that would put her cheating boyfriend in the doghouse.

Chet, the wise and lovable canine narrator of Dog on It, and Bernie, a down-on-his-luck private investigator, are quick to take a new case involving a frantic mother searching for her teenage daughter. This well-behaved and gifted student may or may not have been kidnapped, but she has definitely gotten mixed up with some very unsavory characters. 

With Chet’s highly trained nose leading the way, their hunt for clues takes them into the desert to biker bars and other exotic locales—until the bad guys try to turn the tables and the resourceful duo lands in the paws of peril. Spencer Quinn’s irresistible mystery kicks off a delightful new series that will have readers panting for more.

What first seems like a walk in the park to wise and lovable canine narrator Chet and his human companion Bernie—to investigate threats made against a pretty, pampered show dog—turns into a serious case when Princess and her owner are abducted. To make matters worse, Bernie’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, reporter Susie Sanchez, disappears too. When Chet is separated from Bernie, he’s on his own to put the pieces together, find his way home, and save the day.

Chet has smelled a lot of unusual things in his years as trusted companion and partner to P.I. Bernie Little, but nothing has prepared him for the exotic scents he encounters when an old-fashioned traveling circus comes to town. 

Bernie scores tickets to this less-than-greatest show-on-earth because his son Charlie is crazy about elephants. The only problem is that Peanut, the headlining pachyderm of this particular one-ring circus, has gone missing—along with her trainer, Uri DeLeath. Stranger still, no one saw them leave. How does an elephant vanish without a trace?

At first there’s nothing Bernie and Chet can do—it’s a police matter and they have no standing in the case. But then they’re hired by Popo the Clown, who has his own reasons for wanting to find out what has become of the mysteriously missing duo. After Chet takes a few sniffs in Peanut’s trailer and picks up her one-of-a-kind scent, he and Bernie are in hot pursuit, heading far away from the bright lights of the traveling show and into the dark desert night.

Some very dangerous people would prefer that Chet and Bernie disappear for good and will go to any lengths to make that happen. Across the border in Mexico and separated from Bernie, Chet must use all his natural strength and doggy smarts to try to save himself—not to mention Bernie and a decidedly uncooperative Peanut, too.

He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. This year, jolly old St. Nick knows Bernie has been sleeping on preparations for a special Christmas celebration with his son Charlie. Enter Plumpy Napoleon, fresh from a short stint in prison, to save Bernie from the naughty list. Plumpy calls his latest business plan “Santa 365.”

For a small fee (that only gets bigger), he’ll fill your life with holiday cheer, including elves, a festive party, gifts, and even a Christmas tree delivered right to your front door. Bernie signs on for the full yuletide experience. But after the blowout holiday bash, Bernie and Chet the dog discover one of Santa’s helpers helped himself to more than Christmas candy.

The intrepid duo sets out to find the sticky-fingered perp and reclaim the stolen goods. Add in a surprise visit from Bernie’s mom, two elderly sisters seeking their own brand of justice, and an elf with a stocking full of secrets, and you have a Christmas mystery that only Chet and Bernie could possibly unwrap.

Spencer Quinn’s engaging and unlikely team of crime solvers takes on the case of a boy gone missing from a wilderness camp.

The kid’s mother thinks her ex-husband snatched their son, but Chet’s always reliable nose leads Bernie in a new and dangerous direction. Meanwhile, matters at home get complicated when a stray puppy that looks suspiciously like Chet shows up. 

Affairs of the heart collide with a job that’s never been tougher, requiring our intrepid sleuths to trust each other even when circumstances—and a rival P.I.—conspire to keep them far apart.

Everyone’s favorite detective team returns in a new adventure as canine narrator Chet and his human partner P.I. Bernie Little find that Hollywood has gone to the dogs.

While Tinseltown bad boy Thad Perry is in town shooting a big-budget Western, Bernie and Chet have to keep him out of trouble. But soon they discover Thad has a mysterious connection to the Valley, and the only people who know his secrets keep turning up dead before they can talk.

As Bernie’s love life goes long-distance and Chet’s late-night assignations give rise to an unexpected dividend, it’s all our two sleuths can do to keep the actor in their sights. Worst of all, Thad is a self-proclaimed cat person, and his feline friend Brando has taken an instant dislike to Chet.

Like the winning books before it, this fifth book in the series combines a topnotch mystery with genuine humor and a perceptive take on the relationship between human and dog that will stay with you long after the case is solved.

Iggy is a dog who doesn’t get out much, so it’s big news when elderly Mr. Parsons knocks on Bernie’s door to say that Iggy has vanished. In the search for Iggy, Chet and Bernie find Mrs. Parsons unconscious on her bedroom floor, in need of urgent medical care. But it’s only when they arrive at the hospital that things get really interesting.

With a jewel thief making short work of hospital patients’ valuables, it seems that Iggy is not alone in disappearing right out from under somebody’s nose. Suspects are plentiful and witnesses are few. But when little Iggy reappears, tail wagging, it turns out he holds the key to solving the entire affair.

In addition to a clever caper and the return of much beloved characters, this gem of a short story is a testament to the enduring power of friendship in all its forms: neighbor to neighbor, man to dog, dog to dog. Here is a treat you’ll devour in on

Chet and Bernie, the best canine/human P.I. team in the business, encounter a prison work crew that includes Frenchie Boutette, an old pal they sent up the river. Frenchie begs Bernie to go find his brother Ralph, a reclusive inventor who has disappeared—along with his houseboat—from the bayou. Not long after, Bernie fends off a deadly attack from a member of a shadowy gang called the Q’s. The attacker dies without revealing anything.

In bayou country, Chet and Bernie meet the no-good Boutette family and their ancient enemies, the maybe-even-worse Robideaus. At first it looks like Ralph’s disappearance is tied to a dispute between the two families over a load of stolen shrimp. But Chet turns up a buried clue that sends them in a new and dangerous direction involving the oil business. 

The more they find out about Ralph and what he knew, the less their chances of surviving to do anything about it. Now they’re up against Big Oil, shadowy black ops figures, and the Q’s—plus Iko, a legendary bayou gator with a big appetite…

Chet and Bernie pay a visit to Bernie’s girlfriend, Suzie Sanchez, an ace reporter living in far-off Washington, DC. She’s working on a big story she can’t talk about, but when her source, a mysterious Brit with possible intelligence connections, runs into trouble of the worst kind, Bernie suddenly finds himself under arrest.

Meanwhile Chet gets to know a powerful DC operative who may or may not have the goods on an ambitious politician. Soon Chet and Bernie are sucked into an international conspiracy, battling unfamiliar forces under the blinking red eyes of a strange bird that Chet notices from the get-go but seems to have slipped by everybody else. Most menacing of all is Barnum, a guinea pig with the fate of the nation in his tiny paws.

As Harry Truman famously quipped, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Too bad he didn’t get to meet Chet!

In the latest entry in the immensely popular Chet and Bernie mystery series, Private Investigator Bernie Little and his canine companion Chet return home to encounter some alarming developments. 

First off, Bernie’s wall safe—normally hidden behind the waterfall picture in the office—is gone, and with it Bernie’s grandfather’s watch, their most valuable possession. And next door, old Mr. Parsons is under investigation for being in possession of a saguaro cactus illegally transplanted from the desert. Bernie and Chet go deep into the desert to investigate. Is it possible that such a lovely old couple have a terrible secret in their past?

Chet and Bernie discover bad things going on in the wilderness, far worse that cactus smuggling, and all connected to a strange but innocent-seeming desert festival called Cactus Man. They unearth leads that take them back to a long-ago kidnapping that may not have been a kidnapping and threaten a ruthless and charismatic criminal with a cult following, a criminal who sees at once what Chet and Bernie mean to each other and knows how to exploit it.

Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe), and P.I. Bernie encounter heartache and much worse in the world of country music. 

They’re both music lovers, so when Lotty Pilgrim, a country singer from long ago, turns up at a local bar, they drive out to catch her act. Bernie’s surprised to see someone who was once so big performing in such a dive, and drops a C-note the Little Detective Agency can’t afford to part with into the tip jar. The C-note is stolen right from under their noses – even from under Chet’s, the nose that misses nothing – and before the night is over, it’s stolen again.

Soon they’re working the most puzzling case of their career, a case that takes them back in time in search of old border-town secrets, and into present-day danger because powerful people want those secrets to stay hidden. Chet and Bernie find themselves sucked into a real-life murder ballad where they have no one to trust but each other.

When Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe), and his partner, PI Bernie Little of the desert-based Little Detective Agency, arrive to a meeting with hydrologist Wendell Nero, they are in for a shocking sight―Wendell has come to a violent and mysterious end. What did the hydrologist want to see them about? Is his death a random robbery, or something more? Chet and Bernie, working for nothing more than an eight-pack of Slim Jims, are on the case.

Bernie might be the only one who thinks the police have arrested the wrong man, including the perp’s own defense attorney. Chet and Bernie begin to look into Wendell’s work, a search that leads to a struggling winemaker who has received an offer he can’t refuse. Meanwhile, Chet is smelling water where there is no water, and soon Chet and Bernie are in danger like never before.

Chet and Bernie are contacted by a terribly scared young woman who seems to want their help. Before she can even tell them her name, she flees in panic. But in that brief meeting Chet sniffs out an important secret about her, a secret at the heart of the mystery he and Bernie set out to solve.

It's a case with no client and no crime and yet great danger, with the duo facing a powerful politician who has a lot to lose. Their only hope lies with a ferret named Griffie who adores Bernie. Is there room for a ferret in the Chet and Bernie relationship? That's the challenge Chet faces, the biggest of his career. Hanging in the balance are the lives of two mistreated young women and the future of the whole state.

Holiday time in the Valley, and in the holiday spirit―despite the dismal shape of the finances at the Little Detective Agency―Bernie refers a potential client to Victor Klovsky, a fellow private eye. It’s also true that the case―promising lots of online research but little action―doesn’t appeal to Bernie, while it seems perfect for Victor, who is not cut out for rough stuff. But Victor disappears in a rough-stuff way, and when he doesn’t show up at his mom’s to light the Hanukkah candles, she hires Chet and Bernie to find him.

They soon discover that Victor’s client has also vanished. The trail leads to the ruins of a mission called Nuestra Señora de los Saguaros, dating back to the earliest Spanish explorers. Some very dangerous people are interested in the old mission. Does some dusty archive hold the secret of a previously unknown art treasure, possibly buried for centuries? What does the Flight into Egypt―when Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus fled Herod―have to do with saguaros, the Sonoran desert cactus?

No one is better than Chet at nosing out buried secrets, but before he can, he and Bernie are forced to take flight themselves, chased through a Christmas Eve blizzard by a murderous foe who loves art all too much.

When Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe), and his human partner, PI Bernie Little, are approached by a down-and-out older man with a cardboard sign at an exit ramp, Bernie is shocked to discover the man is a former teammate from his high school baseball team. Chet and Bernie take Rocket out for a good meal, and later, Bernie investigates Rocket’s past, trying to figure out what exactly went wrong.

Then, Rocket goes suspiciously missing. With his former teammate likely in danger, Bernie goes back to his old high school for answers, where much that he remembers turns out not to be true—and there are powerful and dangerous people not happy with the questions Bernie is asking.

Bernie soon learns that he misunderstood much about his high school years – and now, Chet and Bernie are plunged into a dangerous case where the past isn’t dead and the future could be fatal.

Queenie the cat has a BIG problem. And for once, it's not the slobbery, overly excited creature who also lives at Blackberry Hill Inn. Sweet Lady Emsworth, the neighbor's prize cow, has disappeared, meaning no morning cream for Queenie. And when Queenie's not happy, NO ONE is happy . . .

Things aren't looking great for Arthur the dog, either. His beloved humans, twins Harmony and Bro, are distressed about the strange activity in their town. Mysterious hi-tech people are suddenly very interested in nearby Catastrophe Falls, bills are piling up at their mom's inn . . . and now the twins might be hiding a fugitive?!

Arthur is desperate to help but for some reason, no one seems to think he's up to the task. (Could that be because he can't remember what happened more than 10 seconds ago? Surely not!) Can Arthur save the day -- and become a hero in Queenie's eyes -- without making a disastrous splash?

Arthur doesn't always remember where he buried his bone, or what he was doing before he started scratching his ear, but he never forgets three important facts:1) Bacon is delicious 2) He loves his humans, twins Bro and Harmony, with all his heart 3) Queenie the cat is out to destroy him.

So when Queenie wins first place in a feline beauty contest at the county fair, Arthur expects her to be snootier than ever. (Even though she barely beat out another cat who looked almost exactly like her.) Yet when Queenie returns from the fair, she seems oddly nice and sociable -- almost like she's had a personality change!

The humans chalk up Queenie's good mood to her recent win, but Arthur knows the truth. He can tell from the smell that this friendly Queenie is an imposter! Yet before he can decide what to do, Cuthbert the Clown -- the only one who knows what's really going on -- turns up missing. Arthur wants to help his humans find Cuthbert, but he has seen some disturbing things they have not. Can he solve a mystery on his own? Or will he have to accept that he needs Queenie as much as he needs bacon?

From the outside, Queenie the cat and Arthur the dog appear to have a lot in common. Both pets live in the charming Blackberry Hill inn. They both love their humans, twins Harmony and Bro. They both have a fondness for sausage. But that doesn't change the fact that they are mortal enemies. Goofy, big-hearted Arthur loves everyone he's ever met . . . except the snobby, scheming cat who's devoted her life to ruining his. Queenie is a bit choosier. And who can blame her? 

When you're brilliant AND exquisitely beautiful, you can't be expected to rub tails with commoners. Especially not slobbery dogs. But when the twins' beloved cousin is framed for murder, Queenie and Arthur must work together to clear his name . . . something Queenie finds even more distasteful than inexpensive caviar. Can two enemies put aside their differences long enough to solve the mystery?