Amazon.com Review

Healy's creation, the reflective Boston-based private investigator John Cuddy, first caught our attention by doing homey, believable things like visiting his wife's grave and asking her advice. Eleven books into the series, Healy still manages to mix the homey touches with moments of high drama, keeping the balance perfect. When a woman banker hires Cuddy to check on her new lover's nonexistent past, he soon realizes the man is a protected government witness. Other writers would have left it there, but Healy builds an additional scaffold as intriguing as it is dangerous for everyone concerned. (Past Cuddy books: Act of God, Blunt Darts, Rescue, Right to Die, Shallow Graves, Foursome, So Like Sleep, Swan Dive, Yesterday's News).

From Publishers Weekly

Boston PI John Francis Cuddy's 11th case (after Rescue) puts him on the trail of a man with no apparent past. Cuddy's client, banker Olga Evorova, loves businessman Andrew Dees. Although Dees has charmed Evorova, the shrewd Russian immigrant is troubled by his obsessive secrecy. Pretending to survey Dees's neighbors about their apartment complex, Cuddy meets a puzzling hostility from the property manager and takes a beating from two goons who warn him to butt out. He persists, soon learning that the real Andrew Dees died years ago, and that Evorova's beau has taken the dead man's name. On a hunch, Cuddy shows his mob contact, New Age music lover Primo Zuppone, a picture of the false Dees. Suddenly, out-of-town hoods descend on Boston with their own murderous priorities, only to learn that Dees and Evorova have disappeared. As usual, Healy provides Cuddy with a rich supporting cast. Cuddy's lover, prosecutor Nancy Meagher, discovers a symptom of breast cancer, the disease that killed his first wife, Beth. Cuddy connoisseurs will notice his "conversations" at Beth's grave becoming shorter and less frequent, as Healy's hero moves cautiously into a new relationship. The plot evokes vintage Ross Macdonald: the detective's search reveals old secrets that spawn new horrors years later. Cuddy is always good gritty company, and Healy has written another engrossing entry in this consistently solid series.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

When euthanasia advocate and professor Maisy Andrus receives anonymous death threats, Boston private investigator John Cuddy (last seen in the taut Yesterday's News ) is hired to keep her alive. As this smooth mystery progresses, Cuddy's list of potential assassins grows to include everyone from hysterical fundamentalists to rabid neo-Nazis. However, the PI discovers that her most dangerous enemies may be closer to home: Andrus's stepson knows that she gave a lethal injection to his dying father and was never charged with murder, while Andrus's current husband would inherit a fortune upon her death. Later, the would-be killer plays at target practice with Andrus and Cuddy, and Cuddy fears that he is a pawn in a contest where the same fate may await winner and loser--death. Healy uses finesse to make an appeal for understanding an emotion-charged issue.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Across the country, Boston private eye John Cuddy intends to find out who has threatened right-to-die advocate Professor Maisy Andrews via her private mail. Looking past the rather motley crew around the wealthy professor--a deaf mute bodyguard, a diabetic gay activist, a Cuban refugee, and a younger tennis pro husband--Cuddy checks college antagonists and hate-mail writers. Healy fills the spaces around this negligible plot with Cuddy's preparations for running his first Boston marathon. Not much action or suspense, but series followers ( Swan Dive , HarperCollins, 1988; So Like Sleep , LJ 4/1/87; etc.) may continue to appreciate the Boston surrounds.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Boston PI John Cuddy doesn't know that he'll be working under the eagle eye of mob boss Tommy "the Temper" Danucci when he agrees to look into the death of fashion model Mau Tim Dani for his former employer, Empire Insurance. He learns soon enough that Mau Tim was Danucci's granddaughter and that the mob family remains as puzzled about her death as the police and the insurance company that carried a large policy on her life for the modeling agency. The young woman was strangled in her apartment, which was owned and run by the family; the only other tenant in the building was another model. With only Mau Tim's missing iolite necklace to work from, Cuddy methodically interviews each of her relatives, co-workers and lovers, gradually building a picture of the girl and ultimately determining who killed her. As in past books, Healy gives his readers an array of distinctive characters while engaging them in a deftly plotted and satisfying story.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Boston's low-keyed, unflappable p.i. John Cuddy (Right to Die, 1991, etc.) is hired by his despised insurance-company ex-boss to investigate the murder of young model Mau Tim Dani, whose agency had insured her life for half a million. Soon after, a henchman escorts Cuddy to a meeting with notorious mobster Tommy the Temper Danucci, who, it turns out, was Mau Tim's grandfather--a fact known to her best friend Sinead Fagan, an ex-boyfriend; photographer Oscar Puriefoy, and a few others. The murder, in Mau Tim's apartment, appears to be robbery-connected, but as Cuddy rehashes at length details of times, exits, and entries, puzzling questions arise. The answers are shocking and not totally convincing. Cuddy's bloodless romance with assistant D.A. Nancy Meagher; her cat's medical problems; a parade of characters who'd be mute without their all-purpose four-letter words; and a tortoiselike pace--all add up to torpid, under-par fare from an old hand who usually satisfies. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

Boston private detective John Francis Cuddy, first encountered in So Like Sleep , returns in Healy's sizzling new mystery. A man so debased that he mutilates his small daughter's kitten, Roy Marsh won't agree to a fair financial settlement with his wife Hanna, who is divorcing him. Cuddy has a way of making Roy pay for his cruelty and is therefore a suspect when somebody kills the sadist and a young prostitute in her apartment. In trouble with the police and, the detective quickly learns, with criminals bent on finding drugs missing from the dead man's luxurious house, Cuddy narrowly survives body blows, time after time. In hopes of solving the case, he keeps investigating the people in Roy's background, particularly sexy lawyer Felicia Arnold, still another woman in Roy's life, who was abetting the husband in his scheme to cheat Hanna. The story drives to a knockout finish with implications for the engaging detective's happy future. Visiting his wife's grave, Cuddy feels sure she approves of his new life with Nancy Arnold, who doubtlessly will co-star again in additions to the series. A beguiling sense of humor, ingenious plotting and avoidance of shallow sentimentality are traits that take Healy's novels to the top.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.