Detection goes to the dogs

The second book featuring the "investigative consultant" Teddy Ruzak, The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs by Richard Yancey, follows the same pattern as the first book. Teddy is still as passive and rambling as ever, Felicia is bossy and exasperated, and not a whole lot happens.

Ruzak still doesn't have his Private Investigator's licence, having failed his first attempt at taking the test. He doesn't seem entirely motivated to study for another go-round, so when an official tells him he must close his office until he obtains a license, Ruzak isn't too bothered. In the midst of closing up his office, he looks outside and sees the body of a homeless man in the alley. This is the same homeless man that Ruzak gave money and a stained hat to the previous day. Other people will inexplicably tussle over that old, shapeless, used hat later in the book.

The police seem to have little interest in the case, but for some reason Ruzak decides that he is going to offer a $25,000 reward in order to solve it. Remember, he is out of a job for the foreseeable future, so just why he should invest money in the case is not really clear. He has plenty of time on his hands, though, so he is able to come up with some leads that the police have overlooked.

In the meantime, he gains an aggressive semi-girlfriend, but he's unable to either commit to a relationship or tell her he's not interested. She works at the animal shelter, and shows up on his doorstep one day with a dog (even though he's not allowed to have dogs in his apartment). Aside from all the wishy-washy lack of action, Ruzak also spends a great deal of the novel rambling about the existence of God. It's all very tiresome.

There are some interesting descriptions of Knoxville, and I could vividly imagine where everything was taking place -- there just wasn't much of anything else to hold my interest. An overall rating of "meh." At least the chapters are short. There was even a blank page inserted between chapters with the date the "supposed" action was taking place. All the better to pad the pages of the book without actually having to have any action or plot.

Final Verdict for The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs: One Gherkin, for being a continuation of a not very interesting series

Read More

A Knoxville Mystery

A few days ago I started wondering if there had ever been a mystery series set in Knoxville -- sort of a Stephanie Plum of the Scruffy Little City. Lo and behold, such a thing does exist! In The Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancy, we meet Teddy Ruzak, a bored night security guard who decides to use the money he inherits after his mother's death to start a detective agency right in downtown Knoxville. We hear about his walking around on Church Ave. and Gay Street, about driving along Kingston Pike and Pellissippi Parkway, and about scarfing Krispy Kreme donuts when the "hot" sign is lit. Yep, describes Knoxville to a T (although there was a distressing lack of emphasis on the color orange in the book).

When Teddy opens his detective agency, he asks the waitress at his favorite diner to become his secretary. This is just one in the long line of mistakes that he makes, for she begins to charge office furniture and even her wardrobe to the rapidly dwindling business account. Teddy, however, has been too beaten down by life to protest much of anything, so his effectiveness as a detective is questionable (get it?).

His first, and only, case in this novel concerns an elderly man who witnessed an SUV drive over a bunch of baby geese. The man was so incensed that he decided to hire a private detective to track down the goose killer. Just what was to be done if and when this happened was left somewhat vague. However, in attempting to figure out what had happened with the baby geese, Teddy stumbles onto an even bigger crime, this one involving an abduction and possible murder.

The chapters are amazingly short, generally in the 2 1/2 page range, although there are a few multi-page whopper chapters included. I liked the story better as it went on, but at the beginning the narration was rather slow and choppy. Still, there aren't that many books set in Knoxville, so I'll be reading the follow-up to see what new adventures Ruzak can find in town!

Final Verdict for The Highly Effective Detective: Two Gherkins, for a great setting but generally unsympathetic characters and not much action

Read More

I came all the way to Knoxville for this?

I was very excited when a pen-pal of mine told me he'd seen Knoxville on the new Stephen Fry program being shown on British TV. Luckily, I've been able to see some of the episodes and I was curious to see what interesting things he would visit while in town.

Stephen Fry decided to take a black London cab (modified for the U.S., of course) on a road trip to all 50 states in a program titled (appropriately enough) Stephen Fry in America. The program is only 6 hours long, so naturally that doesn't leave much time for each state. Still, he does try to show some scenery and explain a bit about what each state is known for.

What, exactly, would Knoxville be known for? Its proximity to the Great Smoky Mountains, perhaps? The iconic Sunsphere? The obscenely large Neyland stadium and its orange festooned fans? The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame? Well, those things apparently aren't worth visiting (or even mentioning, beyond some lovely views of the mountains). No, what draws our international visitor is, of course, the Body Farm. Made famous by Patricia Cornwell's novel of the same name, the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility allows researchers to study how human bodies decay in a variety of situations: exposed to the elements, under plastic, in car trunks, etc. Everyone in Knoxville knows it exists and is heavily guarded against nosy-parkers, but I had no idea that it would be viewed as a tourist destination.

Stephen Fry seemed a little surprised that the facility would be so well-guarded, what with all the inhabitants being unlikely to escape. Still, I suppose the macabre sights might attract hordes of unwanted visitors, or at least the occasional teenager climbing over the fence on a dare. While gruesome, the research done at the Body Farm has been groundbreaking in helping scientists and law enforcement understand how bodies decay.

After entering the facility, Fry gets a look at the bodies in various stages of decomposition. His helpful guide, a graduate student, is more than happy to uncover bodies and point out various features to the somewhat bemused actor. He does seem to spend a lot of time there, peering into plastic bins and under tarps, so I guess it's only natural that he wouldn't have the time or inclination to see anything else in Knoxville. Pity. On the other hand, at least we did get some international exposure (so to speak), which doesn't happen every day. I just hope the throngs of British tourists who turn up won't expect a guided tour of the facility!

As an aside, I have been somewhat astounded that the Americans Fry encounters don't seem to have the faintest idea who he is. Only a professor from Harvard University is appropriately excited and enthralled to be in the presence of the Great Fry. Of course, there could have been a lot of fawning and jumping up and down edited out, but somehow I doubt it . . .

By a strange coincidence, I happen to be reading two books about the Body Farm right now. Both are by Dr. Bill Bass, the acknowledged founder of the facility, and Jon Jefferson. These books are non-fiction accounts of the events that demonstrated the need for the research and study of human decomposition as well as some of the more famous cases that Dr. Bass has been involved with. The two authors have also used their writing skills and intimate knowledge of the topic to write some novels as well.

Death's Acre, from 2003, includes some well-known cases, such as Knoxville's "Zoo Man" serial killer and the infamous Tri-State Crematory case from Georgia. Dr. Bass makes the science behind piecing together burned, decayed and dismembered bodies quite fascinating. The most interesting case discussed, from my point of view, involved a body found in a freshly disturbed Civil War-ear grave. Dr. Bass was called in to try to figure out how long it had been since the person found in the grave had been killed. The assumption was that some killer had thought an old grave would be an ideal place to hide a new body. The body in question "appeared" fresh to Bass, and he stated that the person had been dead for two to six months. It turned out, however, that someone had been trying to remove the body of the Civil War soldier, not add a new one. The corpse had been remarkably, and unusually, well-preserved. Dr. Bass points out several times in the book how he was only off 113 years in his estimation of time of death! While this was an early case for him, it is reassuring to read about how even the experts can be spectacularly wrong at times!

In 2007's Beyond the Body Farm there are more interesting forensic cases, including one involving J.P. Richardson (aka "the Big Bopper"), killed in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Dr. Bass is called in to help disprove some rumors that have been concerning Richardson's family since his death in 1959.

I'm waiting to see the rest of the episodes of Stephen Fry's program before giving it my final rating. On this side of the pond, it appears that the companion book Stephen Fry in America: Fifty States and the Man Who Set Out to See Them All will be released in the U.S. in May. Something to look forward to!

On another note, Stephen Fry takes offense at anti-American sentiments in Britain. He likes us, he really likes us (apologies to Sally Field)!

Final Verdict for Death's Acre and Beyond the Body Farm: Three Gherkins, for giving the reader a fascinating inside look at a relatively new and interesting scientific subject

Read More