Sunday, August 19, 2012

Swan Dive (John Francis Cuddy) by Jeremiah Healy

We're all lucky Open Road is now offering the John Cuddy series in ebook format so we can all enjoy this high-quality series again.


In this one John is hired to play bodyguard for a woman who wants to divorce her cruel husband. When the husband is found dead along with a hooker Cuddy is suspected of these killings. The PI is forced to investigate these deaths to prove his innocence.

Jeremiah Healy shows us how great the nineties PI's were with a great, intelligent plot, some non-gratuitous violence and great characters. What makes this one especially interesting in the way Cuddy decides to make some decisions that are quite morally ambiguous, showing us all a good PI should be interested in justice more than the law.

An example for everyone trying to write a good PI novel...

2 comments:

Keith Dixon said...

I LOVE the Cuddy books. So glad they're going to be available again. And the books of Jonathan Valin, too. Are they likely to be reprinted do you think?

jvdsteen said...

I figure they will HAVE to be reprinted, Keith. They keep popping up when people talk about favorite PI novels of the past. I never read one but hope they will be reprinted soon so I will get a chance...