Sometimes – not often – an author creates a series that technicaly features a prive eye and a mystery but is just about as far from the norm as you can get. Call them capers, romps, or maybe just good novels. They may not satisfy your craving for a private eye yarn, but they’re well-done and enjoyable.

Here are two that have won more than their share of readers. More will join them as yours truly happens across them or hangers-out at this blog suggest them.

• Carolyn Haines – Her extensive series features P.I. Sarah Booth Delaney and her gumshoe partner Tinkie. (Be assured the latter is a human, not a pet.) They are Mississippi Delta belles who sashay through the conventions of their region and social status to solve cases. The mysteries they solve are well-plotted with good pacing.
• Liza Lutz – Protagonist Isobel “Izzy” Spellman is the adult middle child in a family of private eyes that includes her parents, an uncle and her kid sister. Her strait-laced older brother is a glossy lawyer. The concept sounds over the top, but Lutz somehow makes it plausible, engaging and wonderfully fresh.  There are currently six books in the series.

M. Ruth Myers is the author of the Maggie Sullivan mysteries and other novels.