Dogged Determination

To Fetch a Thief
by Spencer Quinn
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A circus elephant is missing and Chet and Bernie are hot on the trail. The partners in the Little Detective agency each have their gifts to help them get their pachyderm. One of Chet’s is his sense of smell and he has no trouble telling which way this particular victim went. Chet, it turns out, is a dog. To Fetch a Thief is Spencer Quinn’s third book featuring the crime-solving duo. Earlier titles were Dog On It and Thereby Hangs a Tail.

AUTHORLINK: How did you decide to write a story from a dog’s point of view?

QUINN: My wife said I should do something with dogs. I got the idea to write from the dog's perspective at that very moment. Then I went over to the office and wrote what turned out to be the first page of Dog On It, just to see whether the idea was workable. It seemed to be.

AUTHORLINK: Chet blends what seems like real dog attitude with hardboiled detective vocabulary. How did you come up with or figure out Chet’s personality (or canine-ality?).

QUINN: I'm afraid to say that that's the kind of thing that just happens. Reading it over, I can see that I did indeed marry traditional hardboiled PI lingo to this very unreliable narrator, but I didn't do it with conscious forethought. When I'm actually writing my attention is devoted to lining up the narrative with the underlying plot.

AUTHORLINK: How do you set up the mystery? What comes first? How long until you know “who done it,” how they did it and how Chet and Bernie will figure it out?

QUINN: This is the hardest part for me. I start with the engine that drives the story - in To Fetch A Thief, it's an elephant gone missing - try to find reasons that makes sense, will be difficult to unearth, and carry some thematic weight (in the case of To Fetch A Thief, the terrible illegal trade in exotic animals and by extension our treatment of and relationship to animals, a theme of the entire series). Then I hope to identify a few big scenes along the way that will be encouraging beacons during the long process, and I write: Chapter One; and keep going.

AUTHORLINK: Do you ever hit a wall where you seem to be stuck? How do you get past it?

QUINN: I try to write every day, even if not a lot. That way you're always in a new place and never stuck. The truth is I don't believe in stuck.

AUTHORLINK: You’ve written many popular mysteries, suspense and thrillers for adults, youth and children before the Chet and Bernie series. Why did you use a pseudonym for this series?

QUINN: The Chet and Bernie series are so different from my other novels - first person, dog POV, much lighter-hearted - that it felt almost brand new to me, and therefore a new brand seemed appropriate.

AUTHORLINK: What do you like most and least about the writing profession? Any fears?

QUINN: I love the writing itself - entering an imaginative space every day - and know that I always will. That sustains me through any fears or things I don't like. It's clear that big changes are happening in publishing, reflective of a huge and poorly-understood technological upheaval, but can I control that, or even affect it in the smallest way? All I can do is write my best. I can't imagine a time when humans stop liking stories (although I actually sort of can - what a cold thought) but what format those stories will appear in is unclear. Will prose still matter? Who knows?

AUTHORLINK: What advice can you give writers who are trying to break into publishing?

QUINN: Find whatever is unique or at least most special about you, and get that on every page.

AUTHORLINK: Will we ever see Chet and Bernie in the movies? What kind of dog would play Chet? QUINN: Chet and Bernie are currently in development at Universal. I assume Chet will be played by an unknown, but an unknown on his way to being a big star, I hope.

Quinn (also known as Peter Abrahams) is currently caught up in writing Chet and Bernie’s fourth adventure. Whoever the perps turn out to be, when Bernie sics his faithful sidekick on them, they are sure to wind up in the big house breaking rocks in the hot sun.

Diane Slocum has been a newspaper reporter and editor and authored an historical book. As a freelance writer, she contributes regularly to magazines and newspapers. She writes features on authors and a column for writers and readers in Lifestyle magazine. She is assigned to write interviews of first-time novelists and bestselling authors for Authorlink.