Skip to main content

"Three Times Lucky," by Sheila Turnage



Readers of so-called “cozy mysteries” know you can run into problems when the same small town experiences too many odd deaths. After a while even Miss Marple probably stopped getting party invites (“Let’s not invite Miss Marple this weekend. There’s always some ghastly murder when she’s around.” “Quite.”) But there’s no problem yet with Sheila Turnage’s Tupelo Landing series (for kids, grades 4-6).

In Three Times Lucky, a murder comes to tiny Tupelo Landing, N.C., and prompts our protagonist Moses LoBeau (aka Mo) to set up the Desperado Detective Agency with her best friend Dale Earnhardt Johnson III. The crime hits very close to home for our young detectives, but not so close that one of the main characters is the villain. In The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing, the newest book, the murder took places years ago, so our town of quirky characters is somewhat safe, though not without their secrets. 

Turnage’s characters do border on caricature. There’s the bombastic mayor, the gossipy Azelea Women (always taken as a group), and other small-town stereotypes, but, happily, the main characters have enough charm to avoid being typecast. Mo is an orphan who was found as a baby during a hurricane on a raft (hence her name), but she has a home and family with the Colonel and Miss Lana. In the first book, her quest for her “upstream” mother was more a part of the story. In this novel, she writes journal entries to that mom, but seems more settled with her “family of choice” (as she calls them). Truth be told, Mo can get on your nerves. She’s a pushy young lady and I was a bit surprised the Colonel and Miss Lana let her get away with calling someone “rat face.” But she’s getting better. The best development in this second novel involves Dale. In the first book, his abusive father Macon may be helping the bad guys. In Ghosts, Macon is behind bars and Dale is coming to terms with that. He has a great scene near the end of the book that shows his maturation and it’s lovely.

I highly recommend these books to preteens. As with many mysteries, you don’t read them to figure out whodunit, but rather to experience some great storytelling.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Harry vs. Septimus

Sometimes, I like the Septimus Heap series more than the Harry Potter series. There I said it. It’s a secret I’ve kept from all but my kids for a long time. Don’t get me wrong: I’m wild about Harry. I’ve knitted Harry Potter bookmarks (in Gryffindor colors, naturally). I’ve thrown at least two Harry Potter-themed birthday parties, complete with a sorting hat I made. I’ve stood at line overnight at Barnes and Noble waiting for the next book to come out three times. I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire  in one day. But, often, I like Angie Sage’s Septimus Heap books ( Magyk , Flyte , Physik , Queste , Syren , and the just published Darke ) more. And I’m not entirely sure why. My current theory is that the Septimus Heap books are better written and, while also highly derivative, much more charming. The characters are human (muggles, even) and fraught with faults. Also, the Harry Potter books are, rightly so, about Harry. Everything is from Harry’s perspective. Sadly, we don...
1 comment
Read more

The Little Things

I’m not perfect. I’m certainly not a perfectionist. I don’t even have any OCD tendencies (I’ve taken quizzes!). But, as a former copy editor, I do tend to correct mistakes (especially when watching television). It’s a habit. I bring this up because I’ve been bothered by things I’ve read in two books I recently had the opportunity to review. They’re somewhat little things, but I think someone should have checked on them. Like I said, I’m a former copy editor. It was part of my job to check things. But my personality is also such that I’m not always very assertive (luckily, I worked with very, very talented writers and editors who made my job easier). A story that still bothers me: My boss had written the phrase “a tough road to hoe” in one of his columns. I knew it was “row to hoe,” but I figured, he’s the boss, maybe he wants to use “road” because he was talking about paths we take. I wasn’t really brave enough to ask the boss if he knew he had gotten it wrong. Silly on my par...
1 comment
Read more

“I Am Number Four,” by Pittacus Lore

I really wanted to read I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore after I read a review of it a few months ago. I remember the reviewer saying that the author’s name is obviously a pseudonym, then just filed the title away. (I actually have a “book book” – a little book in which I write titles of books I want to read, organized by author. My kids tease me about my book book, but when you’re a motherboard with limited RAM, you need to write things down.) More recently I heard that it’s already been made into a “major motion picture” (due out in February!), so I knew I had to read it soon. And it was OK. The idea – aliens living among us, waiting to get strong enough to go back to rescue their home planet from horrible monsters who now might be coming to conquer Earth – was rather interesting. But the book was just OK. I liked it enough to keep reading it, but probably not enough to bother with the sequels. It’s certainly not as good as Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, which is also...
1 comment
Read more