Sunday is for beginnings, where we take a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. How about The Sound and the Furry? Especially because the digital edition is on sale for the entire month of February! The price? $1.99! Nowadays that’s just another way of saying zero!

“One thing’s for sure,” the lawyer said, handing Bernie our check, “you earned every cent.”

Bernie tucked the check in – oh, no – the chest pocket of his Hawaiian shirt, just about his nicest Hawaiian shirt, with the hula dancers and the trombones, but that wasn’t the point. The point was we’d had chest pocket problems in the past, more than once. And possibly more than twice, but I wouldn’t know, since I don’t count past two. What I do know is that checks have a way of falling out of chest pockets.

“What’s he barking about?” the lawyer said.

Bernie glanced at me. “Just wants to get rolling,” he said. That wasn’t it at all: what I wanted was for Bernie to put that check in his front pants pocket where it would be safe. But then I realized that I did kind of want to get rolling. Wow! That was Bernie, knowing my own mind better than I did. And I knew his exactly the same way!