In the fourteenth book of the Chet & Bernie Mysteries, Christmas is just around the corner when a famous mystery author loses her writing muse, Rudy the reindeer. Can Chet and Bernie travel to Kringle Ranch in Colorado, and save the holiday spirit by rescuing Rudy in UP ON A WOOF TOP by Spencer Quinn?
When Chet and Bernie arrive at Kringle Ranch, Chet learns that reindeer are peculiar animals with cracking knees and funny smells. Bernie is intrigued by Dame Ariadne Carlisle, who writes Christmas-themed mysteries and is working on her one-hundredth novel. Yet Dame Ariadne has writer’s block, due to Rudy being missing. Is someone trying to sabotage the author? When Dame Ariadne’s personal assistant is found unconscious and wounded in a mountain gorge called Devil’s Purse, Chet and Bernie know something isn’t right. As Bernie investigates, he learns Dame Ariadne’s former fiancé was killed in Devil’s Purse many years ago. Is there a connection? It will take a keen nose and some good detecting to get to the bottom of this holiday whodunit.
Chet the dog and his human, Bernie, are a mystery-solving machine in UP ON THE WOOF TOP. Told from Chet’s spirited point of view, many of his interpretations of language and events are funny and amusing. The mystery is light-hearted and festive as the missing reindeer drives the plot, which twists into a more serious crime and mystery. Dame Ariadne is a mystery writer and she likes to write her Christmas mysteries at her snowy Kringle Ranch with a reindeer on her roof. The mystery involves old mines, a curious class ring, treacherous skiing, greedy developers, a missing reindeer, a Ranch Manager who looks like Santa Claus, and plenty of holiday cheer. What’s not to like? Although this is my first time reading this series, I thoroughly enjoyed it, without needing to know all the characters’ histories. Highly recommended for some holiday cheer and canine fun!
Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" (Boston Globe) and his human partner Bernie Little find themselves high in the mountains this holiday season to help Dame Ariadne Carlisle, a renowned author of bestselling Christmas mysteries, find Rudy, her lead reindeer and good luck charm, who has gone missing.At Kringle Ranch, Dame Ariadne’s expansive mountain spread, Chet discovers that he is not fond of reindeer. But the case turns out to be about much more than reindeer after Dame Ariadne’s personal assistant takes a long fall into Devil’s Purse, a deep mountain gorge. When our duo discovers that someone very close to Dame Ariadne was murdered in that same spot decades earlier, they start looking into that long ago unsolved crime.But as they reach into the past, the past is also reaching out for them. Can they unlock the secrets of Dame Ariadne’s life before they too end up at the bottom of the gorge? Is Rudy somehow the key?Up on the Woof Top is a brand-new holiday adventure in Spencer Quinn's delightful New York Times and USA Today bestselling series that the Los Angeles Times called “nothing short of masterful.”
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