Three Times Lucky

Eleven years ago, Mo LoBeau arrived in Tupelo Landing, N.C., a newborn baby girl washed downstream during a hurricane and rescued by “the Colonel,” a stranger who can’t remember anything about his own past. Both are taken in by Miss Lana, owner of the Tupelo Cafe. Mo (short for Moses) loves the Colonel and Lana, but she can’t curb her curiosity: isn’t anybody missing a lucky newborn? Mo scratches this itch by sending messages in bottles to her “Upstream Mother.” Into this implausible but hilarious premise arrives an out-of-town detective, a dead body (cafe customer Mr. Jesse), a long-forgotten bank robbery, and a kidnapping. This much plot might sink a story, but Turnage makes it work. Here is a writer who has never met a metaphor or simile she couldn’t put to good use. Miss Lana’s voice is “the color of sunlight in maple syrup,” while “[r]umors swirl around the Colonel like ink around an octopus.” But it’s Mo’s wry humor that makes this first novel completely memorable. “Boredom kills,” she suggests as Mr. Jesse’s cause of death. “I’ve had close brushes myself, during math.” Ages 10–up. Agent: Melissa Jeglinski, the Knight Agency. (May)