Three Times Lucky

Three Times Lucky (2012) is a middle grade mystery fiction novel written by Sheila Turnage. Turnage is the author of the Mo & Dale series and lives in North Carolina, where her books take place. Three Times Lucky was a Newbery Honor Book, a New York Times Best Seller, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, and an E. B. White Read-Aloud Honor Book. In the story, 11-year-old best friends Mo and Dale attempt to solve the mystery of a local murder and discover The Power of Unconditional Friendship along the way. Mo is an example of Being One’s Own Authority, and when her family is kidnapped, she learns the importance of Found Family and Discovering the Past.

This guide refers to the 2021 Penguin edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, physical abuse, and addiction.

Plot Summary

Miss Moses “Mo” LoBeau, age 11, was adopted by her guardians, Miss Lana and the Colonel, when she was found as a newborn during a hurricane, floating downstream toward their town of Tupelo Landing, North Carolina. Mo sends messages in bottles down the stream in the hope that her biological mother will one day find them. 

Miss Lana and the Colonel need a lot of time apart, and Miss Lana is currently visiting her cousin. Mo opens the family café with the help of her best friend, Dale, and they serve peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Mo serves a local man named Mr. Jesse, who is always grumpy and complaining. In the afternoon, a man named Detective Joe Starr comes into the café to question the locals about a murder in a city nearby. The Colonel, who has memory issues ever since he crashed into a tree on the same night that Mo was born, is questioned about his new Thunderbird and lies about when he got it. 

Dale “borrows” Mr. Jesse’s boat and tricks him into posting a finder’s fee for it. Mo works on her autobiography at night. It is an attempt to find her biological mother, who she calls her “Upstream Mother.”

The next day, Mo and Dale go to Dale’s brother Lavender’s house and are invited to time his laps for an upcoming race. Lavender crashes his car and ends up injured. Later that day, Mr. Jesse is found dead in his boat at the town bridge. 

At a karate night at the café a few days later, Detective Starr comes to ask about Mr. Jesse, and Mo’s nemesis, Anna-Celeste, mentions seeing a boy around Mr. Jesse’s house (Dale). Mo and Dale decide to form the Desperado Detective Agency and begin investigating Mr. Jesse’s murder. They see a man at their window who later turns out to be the killer, Robert Slate. Miss Lana comes home, but Slate is already gone. Mo and Dale hire their friend Skeeter to be their “lawyer” and help prove Dale innocent. 

When Dale comes home, his mother, Miss Rose, is angry at him for leaving without permission and grounds him, tasking him with cleaning out the family’s tobacco barn. Miss Lana doesn’t want Mo at the crime scene either and gives her a scrapbook of their family history to help with her autobiography. Mo goes to the crime scene anyway and ends up finding one of Mr. Jesse’s oars in the creek. Detective Starr doesn’t want Mo to interfere, but he appreciates her finding and drives her home. Starr also questions Miss Lana, as well as Dale’s father, Macon, who comes into the café inebriated and tries to tell Starr to stay away from Dale.

Mo goes over to her teacher Miss Retzyl’s house and meets Deputy Marla, who claims to have lost her parents just like Mo. At Mr. Jesse’s house, Detective Starr questions Dale about being on the property. Knowing Dale is innocent, he uses him as a fake arrest to try and get the killer to come out of hiding. Dale enjoys being the town spectacle. 

A funeral is held for Mr. Jesse at the church, and Dale sings “Amazing Grace.” Deputy Marla approaches Mo after the funeral and tells her that she can come to her with questions. Mo and Dale find out that Mr. Jesse was giving cash donations to the church every week. Meanwhile, the Colonel disappears, and neither Mo nor Miss Lana knows where he is. When Mo and Dale go to check on Lavender, they find him distraught over not having enough money to repair his car. They decide to raise the money for him by selling ad space at a local festival.

Later, Mo and Dale go back to the church to look for clues, and the reverend’s son gives them a photocopy of one of Mr. Jesse’s donation bills. Mo gives the photocopy to Deputy Marla, thinking she can help. After the festival, Mo and Dale come back to Mo’s house and find that Miss Lana is gone and that the house is in shambles. They also find a ransom note. Starr and Marla appear shortly after, and Mo goes into shock knowing that both of her parents are gone. 

Mo and Dale discover that the man they have been seeing around town is Robert Slate, the man responsible for Mr. Jesse’s murder. Mo wonders if Miss Lana was kidnapped because Slate thought that the Colonel had a suitcase full of money. Miss Rose remembers the suitcase but doesn’t think the Colonel has any money. Slate calls the house, and Detective Starr gives the phone to Mo, who insults and yells at Slate. Slate demands half a million dollars as ransom, admitting that he has the Colonel and Miss Lana in his possession.

Deputy Marla starts taking an interest in Mo and Dale and is always around them. She seems overly curious about the Colonel’s possible money stash, and Dale senses that something is off about her. Mo has an old $5 bill from the Colonel traced, and it comes up without any issues. Dale gets upset at Mo for keeping it a secret from him. Mo tells Dale that she feels like she has no one without Miss Lana and the Colonel, and Dale reminds her that she has a whole town to support her. 

A hurricane is on its way toward the coast, and the townspeople begin to prepare for the worst. Mo gets a call from the Colonel, who escaped Slate but left Miss Lana behind. He tells Mo to find a package in his closet. Mo and Dale find the package just in time, and Deputy Marla is right behind them. She pulls a gun on them and tells them that they are interfering with a crime scene.

It becomes clear that Deputy Marla is a threat, and Mo and Dale tie her up before leaving. They stop at an old, abandoned house where Mo thinks Slate might be keeping Miss Lana, but all they find are empty pizza boxes and signs of a struggle. They go back to Dale’s house to wait out the storm. Macon comes in soon after, raging and inebriated. He hits Miss Rose, and Dale points a gun at him. The Colonel appears and takes the gun, telling Macon that he knows about his involvement with Slate. 

Mo and Dale insist on going with the Colonel back to Mr. Jesse’s house, where they now suspect that Slate is hiding. They spot Slate through the window, and Mo and Dale manage to trap him. Miss Lana appears moments later with Detective Starr, and the Colonel finds out that Starr used to be a lawyer who once defended Slate in a murder case. Deputy Marla is exposed as Slate’s accomplice, and both are arrested. 

Two weeks later, the café is bustling again. Mo no longer searches for her Upstream Mother because she has all the family she needs.