Cooking up another rollicking novel
Our local library sticks little logos on the spines of its fiction to guide readers. Chick-lit gets a shapely leg; Romance a heart; Crime a figure with collar turned up; Comedy a smiling emoji. The Spotted Dog will need them all.
The Melburnian fashioner of Phryne Fisher returns after a seven-year hitch to her other heroine, the idiosyncratic amateur detective and committed owner of Earthly Delights Bakery, Corinna Chapman, plus her current squeeze, Daniel, ex-Israeli Army, of the “chocolatesmooth” voice.
There’s also a veteran. An Afghanistan veteran. A mugged, distraught, Scottish, snifferdog-owning Afghanistan veteran. You know from the first paragraphs there won’t be any holding back in this agreeable who-dun-what.
The spotted dog hasn’t been spotted, which puts people in a spot. Actually, it puts Corinna and many, many others in a series of spots, hectic and humorous. There’s never a dull moment. There aren’t many quiet ones, either, which does limit the book’s emotional range.
Characters are nearly all inventive caricatures. Humans are called Philomela, Gossamer, and Mistress Dread. Dogs are Ophelia and Juliet; cats are Horatio, Heckle, and Jekyll. The resident witch and resident dominatrix have walk-past parts; Big Charlie, the dwarfish thief, gets a mention.
There are multiple break-ins; a “ridiculously ham-fisted” gang war; revelations re The Holy Grail and Christ’s marital status; cyber-attacks with rigorously contemporary mention of trolls and malware; tarot readings; a Ma¯ ori enforcer. And murders plural, of course. When it really counts, the spotted dog is right on the spot.
Cooking hasn’t become just TV porn; it’s also become a trendy trope in much popular fiction (another library spine sticker, please). So baklava, appeltaart, dolmades, grilled lamb, bacon and egg muffins, plus a special recipes section, are strewn across the pages of Spotted Dog. And of course you spotted the culinary reference in the title . . .
There’s also industrial-strength coffee and abundant booze; Marlborough sav blanc earns a plug.
It gallops, rollicks and skips along. It vibrantly evokes Melbourne’s ethnic mix. It has insistently clever dialogue (“You sit there with your socks full of feet”) and emetically coy author notes. It’s endlessly inventive and it asserts that women can do anything, usually better than the XY chromosome lot. Corinna Chapman cultists will have every reason to feel delighted.