The Highly Effective Detective Plays the Fool

by Rick Yancey and Richard Yancey

"Deserves mention with the wackiest of today's comic crime novelists… similar to Donald E. Westlake or Carl Hiaasen." -Booklist on The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs In this third installment of Richard Yancey's hilarious Teddy Ruzak P.I. series, Teddy's latest client is a good looking dame with long blond hair and great gams. Her husband, she suspects, is stepping out on her, and she hires Teddy to nail the cheater. Then the client disappears...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312383096
• ISBN13: 9780312383091
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Highly Effective and Highly Entertaining!

Theodore "Teddy" Ruzak isn't your average, every day private investigator and it's not just because he doesn't have a license or because his idea of finding out if his client's husband is having an affair is to call and ask him. Ruzak is out of the ordinary because the man is almost entirely composed of wit and heart. What he lacks in investigative skill and experience he makes up for with a dogged determination and a quick slick line for everyone who dares to get in his way. In //The Highly Effective Detective Plays the Fool// by Richard Yancey, we are taken on slick, sly, witty and wild ride. Katrina Barnes comes to Teddy Ruzak because her husband is cheating on her again, and this time, she fears he loves his new mistress. Soon though, Ruzak's been fired and Katrina goes missing and if Ruzak doesn't search for her, it's possible that no one will. Richard Yancey has crafted a must read. This is the 3rd book starring Teddy Ruzak but I had no problems jumping right in and I was left wanting to read the first two. With slick, sharp dialogue and laugh out loud lines and predicaments, I guarantee you'll enjoy this book. Don't miss out.

A joy to read

Why anyone would say this was boring is beyond me. This series has been one of the most entertaining that I have read. What else can you ask for: an uneducated, literate, persistent "non-detective" who has only truth & justice in his sights. For me these books are a joy to read, and I always wait for the next one. Cleverly written. Too bad this writer is not as appreciated as he should be. Write on, Mr Yancey & count me as one of your most ardent fans.

Review of The Highly Effective Detective Plays the Fool

I was up until 3 a.m. last night. I wasn't worried about finding a job, though I probably should have been. I wasn't worried about needing to have my roof repaired, though I should have been. I wasn't even worried about the paint job my house is going to need. Instead, I was worried and concerned about private investigator Teddy Ruzak and how he was going to stay in business with a state bureaucrat trying to close him down, a dog who didn't appear to like him, and whether his client/ex-client was dead and if so who did it and why. When I was about 65 pages from the end, I even skipped ahead to the last few pages trying to catch a glimpse of the ending, or at least get an idea, with the promise to myself that I would go back and read the missing pages and fill in the missing details during a less nocturnal period in my life. Instead, I wound up staying up and reading my way through to the end of the book and the end of any decent bedtime hour. At 3 a.m., even the church bells in Knoxville are silent. The police sirens, unfortunately, are not. Though I now sit blurry-eyed writing this, it was worth reading to the end of The Highly Effective Detective Plays the Fool by Richard Yancey. Teddy Ruzak does find out what happened to his ex-client, Katrina Bates, who killed her and why, and he does it all, or most all of his detective work, in Knoxville, Tennessee. He also finds a way, with the help of his secretary, to beat the bureaucratic system. There are few authors whose books I look forward to when they come out. The late Robert B. Parker was one, Michael Connelly is another. I include Richard Yancey in that category. I have read all three books in The Highly Effective Detective series, and enjoyed each one. I even found a copy of the first book, The Highly Effective Detective at the recent Friends of the Library book sale and gave it to a friend of mine to read and for her to consider for her mystery book group. The Highly Effective Detective All three are set in Knoxville, and in little ways and sometimes not so little ways, there are connections between the books, though they stand alone. For example, in The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs: A Mystery, as part of the tapestry of the book, Teddy adopts a dog from the shelter. However, Archie, the dog, appears to want nothing to do with Teddy. Archie isn't mean to Teddy, just indifferent. This attitude is continued in the Plays the Fool installment, but comes to a conclusion when Teddy is faced with having to get rid of the dog because his apartment lease at the Sterchi building doesn't allow him to have dogs. And in true fashion that honors the characters of Teddy, Archie, and the building superintendent Whittaker, who has been stalking Teddy over the "illegal" dog, it is not a cheap resolution. As you've probably guessed, Teddy is not your typical wise-cracking, pithy-speaking, jaded private eye. He has been known to sit on his g