by Richard Yancey
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| List Price: | $6.99 |
| Amazon Price: | $6.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
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Product Description
Meet Teddy Ruzak. After his mother dies, Teddy quits his job as a night watchman to fulfill his childhood dream of being a detective. With little planning and even less foresight, he hangs up his shingle and hires his favorite waitress from the local diner to be his Girl Friday.
And his first case? Bringing to justice the thoughtless driver who mows down six baby geese. Not the most exciting assignment—until Teddy’s “wild-goose chase” quickly evolves into an investigation of a vicious murder.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 The stream-of-consciousness detective, 2008-09-24
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.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Please enter a title for your review, 2007-06-07
*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.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
 Refreshingly Original, 2006-07-30
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.
8 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
A Fine Read - If You're 9 Years Old or Younger, 2006-07-28
The bottom line: I've read take-out menus with more substance than Richard Yancey's The Highly Effective Detective. The dim-witted protagonist makes Three's Company's Chrissy Snow seem like a rocket scientist. His rants are clearly filler for a story as bland as unseasoned noodle soup and as dull as an old butter knife. True, you can get through these pages in one sitting, but you'll leave the table with a stiff neck and wholly unsatisfied. Teddy Ruzak, the Grossly Uninspired Detective, takes on a case to find the killer of a gaggle of goslings. Cute enough. He's hired himself an odious secretary who spends all of his money without protest from him, and oh yeah, he's forgotten to get himself a license. But that doesn't suspend disbelief in the least, because this protagonist has the intellect of a mentally challenged 11 year old. If that's what you're looking for in a mystery - the complete opposite of what draws most people to mysteries, a highly competent sleuth - then by all means, Yancey's your man. If not, skip this book. It gets its second star only because I'm certain my 9 year old nephew would enjoy it.
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
amusing investigative tale , 2006-07-16
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
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