Jeremiah Healy (1948–2014)

John Francis Cuddy was an investigator for the Empire Insurance Company healy-bluntdartsuntil they decided his services were no longer needed. So, he figured he’d go it alone as a private detective. Luckily for him, shortly after being fired, he was contacted by Valerie Jacobs, the ex-girlfriend of a claims adjuster at Empire. She’s a teacher and it seems one of her students, Stephen Kinnington, had gone missing two weeks earlier, assumed a runaway. The police and private detectives show more hired by Stephen’s father, Judge Kinnington, have gotten nowhere. His grandmother thinks a fresh pair of eyes will help. However, the Judge must never find out about it.

Cuddy knows a lot of people in the Boston area and as he makes contact with them, he realizes that no one made much of an effort to find Stephen. The backstory is that four years earlier, when Stephen was eleven, his mother drove her car off a bridge. Although the car was recovered, no body was found. It affected Stephen so much that he was institutionalized for about a year.

Cuddy isn’t sure what caused Stephen to run after having been ‘normal’ for years. And being thwarted along the way, isn’t helping.

Blunt Darts by Jeremiah Healy is the first of 13 John Francis Cuddy mysteries plus one short story anthology. I love Boston as a setting for mysteries. I don’t know why, but I do. Cuddy is not over the recent death of his wife, his first and only true love. But while he’s grappling with the disappearance, he’s also got to deal with Valerie’s affection.

Blunt Darts is an easy going kind of mystery. It’s not hard-boiled. It’s not cozy. It’s comfortable. Is that a reasonable thing to say about a mystery? You have fun reading it and when you get to the end, you want more.

I previously blogged about Healy’s suicide. It’s sad that there will be no more Cuddy mysteries and even sadder that Healy found no other way out of his pain. I’d definitely call this a winner. show less

PLOT OR PREMISE:
John Cuddy is a former insurance investigator who lost his job when he started drinking too much following the death of his wife to cancer. A friend from Vietnam calls him up unexpectedly while visiting Boston, arranges to meet him for dinner and drinks, and misses the date only to show up dead the next morning. Cuddy smells a rat in the official story, and sets out to help clear his friend's name and help his family.
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WHAT I LIKED:
"Well, I was supposed to be studying French show more today. I even promised myself I would spend the evening doing that. Then I made the mistake of wandering over to a bookstore and looking through the Mystery section to see if there was anything that leaped off the shelves at me. Jeremiah Healy's ""The Staked Goat"" was feeling particularly restless and somehow not only forced itself off the shelf and into my hands, but also managed to take hold of my wallet and steer me to the register. That was, I think, somewhere around 5:00 p.m. Except for the time on the way to the diner and the time to walk home, I've been subjecting myself to the simply wonderful story contained within its covers ever since. I'm almost tempted to read it again over the next few days s l o w l y this time to see if there is anything I missed, and if not, just to savour it a while longer. In any event, a very enjoyable four hours.

I liked the very realistic portrayal of the friends -- biting their tongues when they used idioms (""dead to the world"", etc), laughing occasionally, etc. But regardless of the fast-paced action after the visit to Pittsburgh, the part I loved the best was the portrayal of the gay couple. I lived with a gay male couple with about the same age discrepancy, who had been together for nineteen years, and it seemed like I was back in their kitchen having breakfast when I was reading the story."
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WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
I did wonder about the accuracy of some of the details surrounding the Shivah sitting for Al (i.e. a funeral on the Saturday -- Jewish Sabbath -- I didn't think that was kosher, no pun intended). But it did say at the start that Al didn't go very often -- hope that wasn't a cop out...could've been an interesting sub-area.
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BOTTOM-LINE:
I was only going to read a little -- and lost an entire evening!
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DISCLOSURE:
I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I was not personal friends with the author, but I did follow him on social media. show less

This was my first time reading Jeremiah Healy, but it won't be the last. I can't remember when I last enjoyed a procedural so much. Healy's book kept me glued to the pages and developments nearly from the first page, and the fact that the book and the characters kept surprising me were only an added bonus. This was twisting, believable, and hugely engaging, and I can't wait to read the other books in the series.

Absolutely recommended.

There’s something about Boston P.I.s. They’re so ethical. When they make a Rescuepromise, they keep it, whether it be Parker’s Spenser, Lehane’s Patrick Kenzie or Healy’s John Cuddy. In Rescue, Cuddy is on Route 93 heading home when he sees a young girl (Melinda) and younger boy (Eddie) by the side of the road, their car with a flat tire. He pulls over and changes the tire.

Melinda and Eddie go off to the woods by the road side for a bit and a man in a blue pickup truck stops to see show more whether he can help. However, he seems more interested in the car and its occupants than helping. Having already finished changing the tire, Cuddy declines the offer and the man speeds on his way.

The next day, when Melinda’s body is found washed up on a river bank in Boston with her car nearby, Cuddy has his suspicions. Eddie, however, is nowhere to be found. Cuddy must honor his promise to Eddie, who asked “If I ever get lost or anything, would you come help me?” It reminds Cuddy, a Vietnam vet, of an unkept promise he made to one of his fellow soldiers three decades earlier.

Cuddy’s search takes him from the woods of New Hampshire to the Florida Keys and involves an evangelist, Royel Wyeth and his Church of the Lord Vigilant. It seems that Royel is ‘studying’ the Mark of Cain, a birthmark that makes Eddie a good subject.

While I enjoyed Rescue, I did have to suspend belief as I neared the end of the book. Actually, any mystery I read that has an evangelical bent to it forces me to suspend belief. Maybe that’s just me.

However, I really like John Cuddy as a character and Healy as a writer. There’s enough rough stuff, but it’s not overdone. There’s also the ‘typical girl comes on to P.I.’ stuff, but also not overdone. While Cuddy may not be as smart-mouthed as Spenser, he’s no dope and is not easily intimidated.

Rescue is the ninth book in the Cuddy series. I had probably read all the books in the series previously, but since Healy committed suicide earlier this year, I’ve re-read two of the books, the other one being the first in the series, Blunt Darts. If you’re looking for a good, entertaining mystery read, you really can’t go wrong with a Jeremiah Healy/John Cuddy mystery. show less