Right to Die

John Francis Cuddy #6

by Jeremiah Healy

Hired to protect Maisy Andrus, a crusader for euthanasia rights, from a potential assassin, Jeremiah Healy enters Andrus's world of righteous activism in order to investigate his list of suspects. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

aka Terry Devane

Jeremiah Healy was the creator of the John Francis Cuddy private-investigator series and the author of several legal thrillers. A former sheriff's officer and military police captain, Healy was also a graduate of Rutgers College and the Harvard Law School. He practiced law in Boston before teaching for eighteen years at the New England School of Law. His first novel, BLUNT DARTS, was published in 1984 and introduced Cuddy, the Boston-based private eye who has become Healy¹s best-known character. Moral, honest--and violent, when need-be--Cuddy makes his living solving cases that have fallen through the cracks of the formal judicial system.

Of his thirteen Cuddy novels and two collections of short stories, fifteen have either won or been nominated for the Shamus Award.
www.JeremiahHealy.com

Series:
* John Francis Cuddy

Reviews

[Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

So he is one of those authors whom I occasionally find less than totally satisfying but every now and then feel the need to return to. Why? Good question, but then an easy one for me to answer. It's not really about the mysteries, some are good, some are OK. It's about the old neighborhoods of Boston and how he, John Francis Cuddy, the protagonist, fits in, kind of grumpy in a practical way, sort of a good guy under a slightly cynical exterior. I like his messy and sometimes unpractical approach to life, he screws up a lot like the rest of us. But then he gets up and carries on. I know, there's nothing new about that but then there is nothing new about a Healy novel.

Yeah, reading a Jeremiah Healy novel is a little like that comfortable old chair you know you should replace. It's probably not good for your back anymore, it's too worn out and it looks like it belongs in the thrift store. But, it's comfortable and you've spent a lot of time in that chair, so, you'll thing about replacing it, but in your heart you know you are probably never going to get around to it.

Yeah, Healy books, they're like that, something you pull off a shelf with a worn cover and ear marked pages, but still, in the end ...totally comfortable.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite of his books. I liked that he dealt with issues, reminded me of Sara Paretsky. Plus I know he ran the Boston Marathon, so that made it more personal. But it was perhaps too personal, knowing that years after the publication of the book, he chose to exercise his right to die.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

More Than a Mystery

Whoa, that was a nasty death in there. Not going to spoil it, not going to tell you that. There are actually two sad, nasty deaths in this one. I narrowed down on the villain about 60% of the way in, or maybe sooner. But I didn’t make all the connections until the end colored in the why.

[David Freas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve liked all the books I’ve read in this series so far. This one did nothing to change that. But, it didn’t feel quite as polished as the two that preceded it.

The ending seemed a bit rushed, as if Healy found himself up against a deadline and had to crank out the last pages to meet it instead of developing the story more. It also was a little too neat, almost a cliché. And it was one of those ‘Where the heck did that come from?’ endings, as there was nothing in the earlier parts of the story to give the reader a clue to who the bad guy might be.

Still, even best-selling authors have an off book now and then, so this not-as-good-as-the-rest effort won’t make me stop reading the remaining books in this series.