Reading Phillip DePoy's "Too Easy" in one day was just too easy! I'm a fan of Southern fiction anyway, but DePoy is special -- a real original. I love his quirky, offbeat characters; his off-the-wall plotting; and his oddball humor and clever use of literary allusions. He always manages to work in some folklore, often in the oddest of ways. And this one was set partly in my favorite city -- Savannah, GA -- and nearby Tybee Island, which is special to me.

This time Atlanta-based PI Flap Tucker's best friend, Dally, sends him searching for a mysterious woman and two good ol' boys who disappeared in the wake of a nasty banker's untimely death. The belief is that they are hiding out near Savannah, on Tybee Island. While searching, another body turns up along the way.

Yes, parts were a bit implausible, but that was OK. It was a rollicking fun read with some food for thought along the way, a nice break from the darker mysteries I've been reading lately. And I didn't figure out how the banker really died until DePoy was ready for the characters to let me in on the secret.

The copy I read was in a Mystery Guild volume, "Easy Does It", containing the first two Flap Tucker mysteries. It's good to pair them because near the start of this second story comes a rather strong "spoiler" for the first book. (In his second series, about Fever Devilin, he became much more subtle about working in material from earlier books.) ( )