Sunday is for beginnings, when we take a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. Because the word Farewell has provoked a lot of questions, let me say right here that A Farewell to Arfs is NOT the last Chet and Bernie novel. I’m a third of the way through the next one! Here’s how A Farewell to Arfs starts. For newcomers, Chet, the narrator, is a dog. BUT NOT A TALKING ONE!

Who wouldn’t love my job? You see new things every day! Here, for example, we had a perp clinging to a branch high up in a cottonwood tree. That wasn’t the new part. Please don’t get ahead of me – although that’s unlikely to happen, your foot speed and mine being … very different, let’s leave it at that with no hurt feelings.