Customer Reviews

The Highly Effective Detective (Teddy Ruzak Mysteries)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

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.

I'm a sucker for stories about loser heroes who eventually turn it around and save the day. Unfortunately, Teddy Ruzack starts out as a lovable loser but then he just becomes more and more annoying as things procede. His diarhea of the mouth, that starts off charming, just becomes more and more forced as the story progresses. And the story, which is also cute at first begins to drag despite the short length.

Thanks to some fairly convenient plot devices, Teddy figures out (most of) the mystery midway through. Instead of going to the cops and telling them though, he allows himself to be intimidated and chickens out (an action that also results in someone else getting killed). For a while, the mystery's fun and Teddy's amusing, but then his failure of "moral character" (a recurring theme of the book) just makes you realize the guy's too much of a boob. I also rapidly got annoyed by his bitchy secretary - who we're supposed to find tough yet sympathetic because she has a disable kid. Instead she justs takes advantage of our sucker of a hero - who still hasn't gotten that message by book's end.

While this book was mildly amusing, I found the wandering musings of the title character and his ineffectual personality dull. I do have friends who enjoy this type of book--all the philosophies and opinions the character expounds upon--but it is just not a style of writing I enjoy. If you are looking for a detective story, this book is not for you.

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.

*contains spoilers*
It starts out promising but as it progresses everything interesting about the characters fades and the writing becomes increasingly padded with inconsequential banal detail. After the mystery driver is introduced it takes 150 pages for any development towards finding his identity to occur, and then it comes from someone undergoing hypnosis. Laziest mystery writing ever. Then there's the main character, an Ellen type self-conscious babbler who starts out endearing but by the halfway point has become irritatingly ineffectual, the world's punching bag who can't or won't punch back. The contempt he endures from his secretary is especially disconcerting and bizarre. In the last third the mystery kicks up a notch, with like who was really driving the car and why, but the twists are vague and convoluted and only become clear when they're finally summed up in a closing speech. Also the secretary is revealed to have a disabled child which I guess is supposed to excuse everything about how she acts. There is some thought put into this book, mainly in the main character's dialogue, but every aspect of the characters and plot spends too much time treading water.