Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm
Set in summer of 1935, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to Key West Florida to live with her mother's family whom she has never met. Her favorite saying is "Life isn't like the movies, and eleven-year-old Turtle is no Shirley Temple." She's smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it's 1935, and jobs and money and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle's mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn't like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida, to stay with relatives she's never met.Unfortunately, Turtle's Mama has neglected to tell Aunt Minnie she's coming, and Turtle gets the stink eye from cousins with monikers like Buddy and Beans. As Turtle soon learns, everything is different in Key West, from the fruit hanging on trees to the scorpions in nightgowns to the ways kids earn money. She can't be part of her cousins' Diaper Gang (no girls allowed), which takes care of fussy babies, but when she finds a treasure map, she hopes she'll be on Easy Street like Little Orphan Annie.
Florida's like nothing Turtle has ever seen. It's hot and strange, full of wild green peeping out between houses, ragtag boy cousins, and secret treasure. Before she knows what's happened, Turtle finds herself coming out of the shell she has spent her life building, and as she does, her world opens up in the most unexpected ways.Full of flavor of Southern Florida and set during the depression this realistic but funny story of a place and time that feels as fresh as when it actually happened. It makes me want to go to that part of the country and see it for myself. I found the author's notes particularly interesting as she explains much of the story comes from the stories her grandmother told.
Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancey
A Teddy Ruzak series
After his mother dies, Teddy Ruzak who has always been an overweight man and just done what was expected of him decides to start his own business. Failing to become a policeman, he's been a security guard for years; now is the time to break out and get into detective work, the reason he was first drawn to law enforcement. Ruzak is an ironic antihero who not only doesn't know much about detecting, but also can't avoid getting suckered by his newly hired assistant (who goes on shopping sprees with his money) or the local deputy (who is too interested in the case of the gosling hit-and-run to be above anyone's suspicion except Ruzak's). The small-town Tennessee setting is both corny and cozy, but not all of the characters here are sweet: in addition to the gosling killer, there's a man with two dead wives and an arsonist. But how he puts all the pieces together is truly genius.
This was actually a good and believable read as it felt like someone who really didn't know what they were doing opening their own detective agency and somehow making it work.
