The Highly Effective Detective

I thoroughly enjoyed both this as well as the Highly Effective Detective goes to the Dogs. I think fans of Donna Andrews and other humorous mystery writers will also enjoy Richard Yancey. Yancey's characters are very believable and very human. I found Teddy especially endearing, as I know real "smart" people who suffer from the same clumsy verbalness which arises from thinking so quickly that your mouth is always trying to catch up.

The protagonist is Teddy Ruzak, a security guard who always dreamed of becoming a private eye. An inheritance makes it possible for him to go into business as one ... except that he has not the slightest idea of how to run a business or how to detect anything. He manages to get a client ... a guy who wants him to find the person who heartlessly ran over some goslings ... and that leads Teddy into some real detective work involving a murder. He manages to solve the case in spite of himself, with a lot of bumbling along the way. Teddy, who is remarkably knowledgeable about a wide range of subjects, is given to long, rambling digressions that make for very funny and often insightful paragraphs. Teddy's free-association style of thinking is, truth be told, probably pretty close to the way we actually process and synthesize information.

I saw this book on Entertainment Weekly's choices for summer reads and was very pleased with their recommendation. I needed a book for a plane trip and chose this delightful Teddy Ruzak story. It was a nice change from the usual, predictable mystery book. Teddy is adorable, fun and a real man! Well written, quick paced and unpredictable. A load of fun.

In Knoxville, Tennessee Theodore "Teddy" Ruzak dreamed of becoming a detective ever since his mom gave him an illustrated Holmes book for his tenth birthday. Encyclopedia Brown enhanced his aspirations, but following high school he failed at the Police Academy. He became a guard and still remains one today at thirty three years old. A week before dying, his mom informs him that he will inherit plenty of money soon; not long after she died Teddy quits his day job to become a private sleuth since he has enough money to live out his dream. Unlicensed and unperturbed, Teddy opens up his firm and quickly obtains his first client and a paying one at that. Parker Hudson informs him that the police laughed at his complaint about a killer getting away with the crime of running over six goslings; he wants the culprit brought to justice so does elderly visitor Eunice Shriver (not the Yankee one). With the help of his faithful office assistant Felicia, when she is not watching her son, he begins investigating the mass murders of the baby geese, but soon finds himself in the midst of a human homicide too. This amusing investigative tale stars one of the best protagonists to work the trade in years and will be considered one of the best of 2006. The story line is filled with plenty of realistic twists, but is driven by Teddy, who turns from pathetic loser into THE HIGHLY EFFECTIVE DETECTIVE. The investigation is fun to follow as Teddy blunders and meanders in his wild goose chase pursuit that turns into a whodunit that is light years beyond his experience. Readers will adore his courage and perseverance as he refuses to quit. Harriet Klausner