[ApK]

I'm up to the fifth book in the Chet and Bernie mysteries by Spencer Quinn: "A Fistful of Collars." I like them well enough to keep listening, and even to keep tolerating the still-awful Hoopla Digital app, the only place I find most of them for free.
But I have to admit they are pretty formulaic and repetitive. Not the core mystery plots, which I find interesting, and a well done, somewhat lighter take on hard-boiled detective stories, but Chet the dog's narration. Quinn has found this brilliant device for increasing his productivity as a writer: At least a solid ten percent--maybe more--of Chet's narration is cut and pasted from all the previous books...and sometimes from previous chapters in the same books. See, Chet repeats the same adorable dogisms..a lot. And since he's a dog, with no clear sense of time, a short attention span, and not so great a memory, he's apt to repeat things he already mentioned....a lot. It was all cute and original for the first two books. By book 5, I'm kind of wishing Chet could hire an editor....but I keep listening. Gotta find out how Chet and Bernie nab the perp!