The book starts with a normal day in Tupelo Landing. The Colonel had come home, and Miss Lana had left for Charleston. They are the foster parents of Moses (Mo) LoBeau, the main character in this story. But the next day is not so normal – Mo never expected the murder that day and the mystery of who did it.

The author Sheila Turnage titled the book Three Times Lucky as Mo was always lucky. The first time she was lucky was when her house got flooded in a hurricane and her mother tied her to a raft.  The second time she got lucky was when she washed ashore on the raft and the Colonel found and rescued her before he fainted.  The third time she was lucky was when the Colonel and Miss Lana took her in.

Tupelo landing is a small town, where everybody knows everybody.  Mo’s best friend is Dale, the second smallest kid in fifth grade. Mo and Dale form a partnership called the Desperado Detectives. The reason they formed a detective group is because they wanted to find out who killed Mr. Jesse Tatum.

Joe Starr, a detective who came to town before the murder of Jesse Tatum, will help to find out who had killed Jesse Tatum and why. Could the bank robbery twelve years ago, the death of Dolph Andrews and Jesse’s dead cousin have to do with the murder of Jesse Tatum?

Dale had stolen Jesse’s rowboat, and on the night of the murder Dale had gone to return it. As result Dale suddenly became a suspect. Starr investigated Dale and found him to be innocent.  However, Starr pretended to have found Dale guilty to see if the actual criminal would get sloppy, because he would think he was off the hook.

(“Dale, I’d like you to ride out of here in the back of my car. In fact come here.”… Starr produced a pair of handcuffs. “Hold out your hands.”…. “I’m not charging Dale with anything.” Starr said. … “Dale’s no killer, I know that. but there is a chance the killer is watching this investigation, and if he thinks Dale’s our suspect, he might get sloppy.” pg. 155)

Since Dale was ‘sorta’ guilty there was a guard following him around . . . or that is what they thought. Could this guy be the answer to the mystery?

When Mo and Dale get home that night they find Mo’s house has been trashed. But where’s Miss Lana? The killer must have taken Miss Lana. What does he want from her? Starr arrives at Mo’s house. Dale shows Starr the guy who had been following him around thinking that this was one of Starr’s guys. Starr looks at the guy but this guy is Slate, the guy who robbed the bank twelve years ago. Did he take Miss Lana? But what would Slate want from Miss Lana and did he kill Jesse Tatum?

Can Mo find Miss Lana before it’s too late…..?

This book was really good. I loved all the mysteries, it would leave you wondering so that you wanted to keep reading. You wanted to find out what would happen next. I also liked this book because you couldn’t guess what was going to happen next. For example, I didn’t guess that Slate was the murderer. The author was very descriptive as she used a lot of similes which made the reading much more interesting.   You will like this book if you like mysteries, and especially if you like cliff hangers. I would rate this book 5 stars.