THE ARMCHAIR REVIEWER
Allen J. Hubin


JEREMIAH HEALY Swan Dive

JEREMIAH HEALY – Swan Dive. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1988. Pocket, paperback, 1989.

   Your name is John Francis Cuddy, Boston private eye. You’ve lost your beloved wife to cancer, and you go frequently to commune at her gravesite, to leave a flower, to talk with her about what’s happening in your life.

   What’s happening Is Nancy Meagher, an assistant D.A., whom you may come to love when your affections recover from wifely loss. What’s also happening is that a friend, a fearfully incompetent lawyer named Chris, with a wife in the latter stages of M.S., asks you to help in a divorce action he’s handling.

   Wants you as a bodyguard, actually, since he’s afraid of the husband. With good reason, it develops, for soon you’re fighting for your life in the underbelly of the city, and the cops have your name on a double murder.

   This is Swan Dive by Jeremiah Healy, a very satisfying read as Cuddy tries to find the way out of a no-win situation.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
       Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.


Editorial Comment:   Swan Dive was the fourth of 13 novel adventures of PI John Francis Cuddy; there have also been two short story collections. Since the most recent novel was Spiral in 1999, it is safe to assume that after nearly automatic yearly appearances over a period of fifteen years, there will be no more.