PAW AND ORDER

A doggone clever detective duo chases a killer.

Arizona private eye Bernie Little drives a Porsche. His canine partner, Chet, flunked out of the police academy. Stopping for barbecue in Louisiana, the pair get into trouble with some bikers and are forced to take possession of a pistol with a pink pearl handle and make their escape. Instead of heading back home, Bernie decides to go to Washington, D.C., where his longtime love, Suzie Sanchez, has taken her dream job as a reporter for the Washington Post. Suzie welcomes them to the carriage house she rents. But Eben St. John, one of her sources, is just leaving when they arrive, and a jealous Bernie jumps to the wrong conclusion. While Bernie naps, Suzie and Chet go to see Eben at his office, where they find him shot dead by the pink-handled pistol that was supposedly locked in the Porsche’s glove box. Arrested and released, Bernie takes the whole affair personally. Although he’s warned off by the police and a man from an unnamed government agency, spied on by a drone Chet thinks is a bird and offered a job by a general who may become a presidential candidate, Bernie keeps searching for the killer. Chet spots the drone and sniffs out a lot of clues, but it makes his head ache trying to communicate his finds to Bernie, who has a headache of his own dealing with mysterious government agencies, the Washington rumor mill and possibly spies as well.

Chet and Bernie’s adventures (A Fistful of Collars, 2012, etc.), presented from the viewpoint of the often befuddled Chet, are always a hoot. This one salts a doggedly determined investigation with plenty of laughs.