A Dog at Sea by J. F. Englert

Randolph is unusually smart. He is not just an intelligent dog, but is, in fact, smarter than many humans, including his owner Harry. The book begins with Harry and Randolph aboard the Nordic Bliss, a canine-friendly cruise headed to Curacao. Ostensibly, Harry and Randolph are on the cruise ship for some relaxation, but the real reason is that they think Curacao is where they will find Imogen. A few years back, Harry and Randolph watched Imogen leave the apartment for some bread, an errand from which she never returned. For a while Harry thought that she was dead, but Randolph had some lingering doubts. In A Dog About Town, Harry becomes convinced that Imogen is still alive, but in hiding for some reason. We find out that reason in A Dog Among Diplomats. In this third book, Randolph hopes to reunite with his mistress and put more of the mystery to rest. But before that can happen, he has to help get the bottom of a murder on board the ship.

The tale is told from Randolph's perspective. His murder-solving skills come from the ability to decipher complex human emotions through scent. In this way, Randolph can get a sense if someone is sad, if they are lying, or if they feel guilty. Randolph has to lead Harry along the way. All the while, Randolph never loses his canine attributes. Englert has a great grasp of canine behavior and a good understanding of what makes a good mystery. I absolutely love the Randolph series, and if you love dogs, mysteries, or good books, then you will too.

A Dog Among Diplomats by J. F. Englert

Randolph and his owner (Harry) become embroiled in an international plot that involves Imogen, Randolph's real owner, and Harry's missing fiance. The story is told from the perspective of Randolph, which adds to the novel's charm. J. F. Englert has a good grasp on canine behavior. His weird little insights into doggy world are enjoyable. Englert is also a good writer with a good sense of humor. Also, this book has a chapter titled, "Liverwurst Is Discovered to Be a Glorious Food."

Read my review of A Dog about Town, to which this book is a sequel if you want to find out more about the characters and the overarching storyline. I enjoyed the first book a lot. This one was just okay. The plot was a little sloppy at points. But it was still an enjoyable read.

I have been trying to come up with alliterative ways to describe Randolph, a murder-solving black Labrador. All I could come up with is:
Doggy Detective
Murder-solving Mutt (although he is not technically a mutt)
Querying Quadruped

A Dog about Town by J. F. Englert

This book was the epitome of an impulse buy for me. I went to the bookstore to buy the new translation of War and Peace, but opted for a Tolstoy short story when I realized that the new War and Peace was not yet in paperback. As I was walking to the front to checkout, the cover of this book caught my eye. It was such a vivid and realistic painting of a dog in a smoking jacket, that it made me smile. These words appeared underneath the title, "Meet Randolph. A dog like any other dog -- but with a nose for murder..." I picked it up at once.

A Dog about Town is narrated by Randolph, a black lab who lives with his owner, Harry, on the Upper West Side. Randolph realizes that he is much more sentient than other animals that he meets. He doesn't know why this is, and while he may have found it intriguing at some point, he has long since stopped worrying about the origins of his advanced mental faculties. He does not talk, walk on his hind legs, or wear clothes (despite what the cover art may suggest). He does, however, read. The Times, The Post, and various magazines left out on the coffee table are all part of his diet. However, he has a particular affinity for Dante Alighieri. He alludes to, and quotes from Dante's Divine Comedy quite often. The title of one chapter is "A Diversion into Dante". While this is inherently funny, it does not lack insight. Afterall, in dog years, Randolph is somewhere in his mid-fifties.

The book opens with Harry returning from a seance at which someone died. Actually, not just someone, but the well-known writer, Lyell Overton Minskoff-Hardy. The circumstances of Overton's demise hint ever so slightly at foul play. As Harry is absentmindedly relaying details from the evening, Randolph starts to see some connections between Overton's death and the disappearance of Imogen, his first master, and girlfriend of Harry. Using his keen sense of smell, which he describes as being 100,000 times more acute than that of a man, Randolph sets about trying to solve not only the mystery of Overton's death, but of the disappearance of Imogen. Since he is "just a dog," solving this mystery entails leading Harry toward clues and steering his thinking in the right direction. This is where Englert gets especially creative.

For a murder mystery about a dog, the writing was surprisingly good. Englert has meaningful insights about life. Here is a passage where one of Harry's friends is talking about unrequited love:

I was in love. I'm still in love. Where Iris is concerned I can't see too clearly. A note of hers about a radiator leak could end with affectionately yours and I would spin for weeks, imagining a romantic breakthrough. If she forgot to punctuate, I would see something in that. It was hope that got me here. Hope that she would cross the street one day and say that she was mine. Hope that she was keeping an eye on me for all those years. But as time went on, I began to accept that she was indifferent.

Much of the book is predicated on the notion that Randolph's nose is better than Vincent Donofrio's Law & Order character. For example, "My olfactories were overwhelmed by the sharp odor of anxiety, confusion and the subtle, creeping scent of imagined guilt." I have no idea if dogs can smell "imagined guilt". To be honest, I don't really care. It worked for the purposes of the book. Another reason that A Dog about Town worked for me is that despite his detecting skills, Randolph never lost his innate canine qualities -- sleeping twelve hours a day, peeing on the sidewalk, rolling around in filth, etc.

I started reading this book on a plane to New York, and as coincidence would have it, the hotel that I stayed at was right in the midst of the area in which this book was set. I would come home from eating somewhere on Amsterdam Avenue and read about Randolph and Harry walking right past the place I just was. So that was kind of weird.