Richard Yancey has an interesting sleuth in The Highly Effective Detective, set in Knoxville, Tennessee. His protagonist, Teddy Ruzak, is a night security guard until he inherits money from his mother's estate, and he decides to become a PI. He hires his favorite waitress from a local diner to be his secretary. He has no business or investigative experience.

Ruzak is unusual in that  he has no confidence, no police skills, and not much success in his life. He became a security guard when he washed out of the police academy. Despite all of the strikes against him, he manages to land two cases and solve each in the end.

He waxes long and gets philosophical at times. If you can get past this, the novel has some interesting characters and a few funny spots.

I also read The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs. (I'm a sucker for mysteries with dogs.) Ruzak is in pretty much the same state as the first mystery. The state of Tennessee shuts him down for not having a PI license. He meets a goth girl at the animal shelter, and he eventually adopts a dog that is infatuated with the secretary's son. In this novel, the second in the series, Ruzak discovers a dead body in the alley. He has no paying client, but he spends the novel solving the crime when the police think they have their man. By the end, he has to pass the next PI exam, or he's out of business permanently.

The characters are interesting. I've never read a mystery with a sleuth quite like this before.

Happy holidays!