Jeremiah Healy is the creator of the John Francis Cuddy private-investigator series and the author (under the pseudonym "Terry Devane") of the Mairead O'Clare legal thrillers. Of his eighteen novels and three collections of short stories, fifteen have either won or been nominated for the Shamus Award.
A former sheriff's officer and military police captain, Healy is a graduate of Rutgers College and the Harvard Law School. He practiced law in Boston before teaching for eighteen years at New England Law--Boston.
Boston's p.i. John Cuddy has had some tough cases (Shallow Graves, etc.), but none as seemingly hopeless as the task of saving Steve Shea from a murder conviction. Shea, a super salesman at DRM, Defense Contractors in Boston, built a posh summer home on Marseilles Pond in the Maine woods. He and wife Sandra--with inseparable friends Dr. Hale Vandemeer and wife Vivian--spent summer weekends there, with loud music and an assortment of high- tech water toys, not endearing them to their few neighbors--like fedora-wearing, shotgun-toting Ma Judson or one-armed, one-legged environmentalist loner Dag Gates. One evening Shea, as was his habit, went to pick up wine and groceries--a 20-minute drive--and returned to find his wife and the Vandemeers dead--each shot with a crossbow. Protesting innocence, Shea is arrested and jailed. His lawyer hires Cuddy to explore any avenue that could provide even reasonable doubt of his guilt. Cuddy probes for means and motives- -the Vandemeers' no-good son Nicky and his drug-pushing, gang member pals; Hale's brother Hub, a car dealer in financial straights; Shea's hard-driving competitors at DRM. In the end, an overhyped secret and a casual remark put Cuddy on the right track- -with his life on the line and rescue from an unexpected source. Boston's mean streets and Maine's peaceful waters provide the richly contrasting background for a sometimes chilling, always compelling story: Healy's best to date. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.