SEBASTIAN, SUPERSLEUTH, AND THE CRUMMY YUMMIES CAPER

Imagine sniffing out important clues which, being a dog, you are unable to communicate to your police-detective owner! Imagine, further, finding both the kidnapped celebrity your owner is watching for and the culprit, then having to behave like a frisky mutt in order to bring both finds to his attention--and, finally and most humiliatingly, enduring the general assumption that your role in the case was accidental! Such is the fate of supersleuth Sebastian, who attends a dog show in a perfect disguise, that of an ordinary dog, and witnesses the disappearance of Chummy the Wonder Dog, a St. Bernard famous for her Chummy Yummies commercials. (Crummy Yummies is more like it, opines Sebastian.) It is Sebastian who discovers the oversized dark brown poodle chained to the sink in the restoom and recognizes her as a hastily clipped and dyed Chummy. And it is Sebastian who notices the brown smudge on Chummy's manager's arm. Worst of ironies, Sebastian's reward for his ""accidental"" part in solving the case is a lifetime supply of Chummy Yummies! Of course, Sebastian has enough appreciation for his own skills to make up for the lack of recognition from the humans. His sardonic asides, his underappreciated underdog status, and his truly clever detection put him well ahead of most series sleuths at this level.