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 Library Journal
Acting on behalf of successful bank employee Olga Evorova, Boston P.I. John Cuddy (Rescue, Pocket, 1995) scopes out her secretive potential fiance, a reclusive man of no apparent family or heritage. Cuddy's investigation stirs up trouble: representatives of the Milwaukee mob appear on the scene and apply pressure. Various plot complications, including a possible cancer diagnosis for lover Nancy, contribute to a most enjoyable and suspenseful work. Recommended.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The eleventh John Cuddy novel finds the Boston private eye doing a background check for Russian immigrant banker Olga Evorova, who's troubled by her lover and possible husband's apparent lack of a past. After learning only that Dees lived a quiet and private life, Cuddy mentions the case to Primo Zuppone, a local Mob kneecapper, and learns that Dees is in the federal witness protection program, having testified against some Milwaukee wise guys. The Mob wants revenge, but Dees and Evorova have disappeared. As always, Cuddy is a good man on Boston's mean streets. The dialogue crackles, the plot is complex and clever, and Cuddy's relationship with his longtime lover faces a crisis in which machismo won't help. Another very strong entry in an excellent series. Wes Lukowsky

From Kirkus Reviews
Russian ‚migr‚ Olga Evorova's high-powered job in a Boston bank gives her plenty of access to databases, but she still can't find out anything about her closemouthed boyfriend Andrew Dees. So she hires John Francis Cuddy to look into his bona fides; Cuddy concocts a cover story that'll allow him to interview the neighbors at Dees's Plymouth Willows condo; and things promptly spin unbelievably out of control. The first indication that anything's wrong comes when the photo Cuddy slips his Mafia buddy Primo Zuppone rings a bell with a Milwaukee family whose bookkeeper sold out their patriarch to the feds and took a powder. Now a pair of strong-arms who've flown all the way to Boston are convinced Cuddy can help them find the rat, and while Cuddy's stalling for time, his lame story to them--hey, the guy's disappeared on me--comes true: Dees has vanished, this time along with Cuddy's client. How to find them and avoid turning them over to the aggrieved mobsters idling in Cuddy's driveway? The answer, Cuddy figures, must lie with the neighbors he's been quizzing; there's definitely something funny there. But Healy's 11th (Rescue, 1995, etc.) leads you through the mazes of Plymouth Willows so expertly that you'll be left shaking your head at how thoroughly you were had. Healy's best book in years--and a dazzling demonstration of how much life is left in the old p.i. formula when it's used with a master's conviction. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Midwest Book Review
A P. I. accepts a routine case of a rich woman's love for an attractive but mysterious man - but finds the results of his investigations puzzling. Everyone associated with the mysterious young man seems to be lying about his past - and all seem afraid. When Cussy is assaulted and warned away from his probe, a casual probe takes a deadly turn in this tense story.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Olga Evorova has dropped in to Cuddy's Boston Commons office without an appointment. She drives a custom-painted Porsche 911 Carrera six-speed; she has a high-paying position at a Boston bank. And she has a boyfriend she wants to marry... except she doesn't know who he really is. Ms. Evorova needs a discreet, confidential background check on the man she knows as Andrew Dees. It seems like a routine case to Cuddy, and that suits him just fine. He wants to concentrate on Assistant D.A. Nancy Meagher; their relationship is taking a quantum leap into something that feels a lot like forever. Cuddy's life, like the golden early autumn days, feels mellow, warm, and promising. He doesn't know it is about to go to hell in a very shaky handbasket. The downward slide starts when Cuddy drives to Cape Cod to find Dees's condo in a seedy town called Plymouth Mills. As Cuddy begins questioning the condo's manager and Dees's neighbors, his instincts begin to signal that something is very wrong. Nothing in his conversations with a housebound alcoholic photographer, a hostile Jamaican-born housewife with a teenage son, and a sweet-as-syrup thirtysomething Yuppie wife seems out of the ordinary. But Cuddy feels they are all lying. When two mob thugs catch him in a Boston parking lot later that night and warn him to stay away from the condo, Cuddy guesses he has stepped into it deep... Is Andrew Dees connected? The one person Cuddy can count on for information is his old friend Primo Zuppone. The knowledge Cuddy is about to receive will not fit the old adage "knowledge is power." It fits a shamus's old lament: "knowledge is trouble." Then, in the midst of a puzzle that has begun to resemble a Russian matryoshka doll - the kind that contains dolls within dolls - he makes one of the worst discoveries of his life. It's about Nancy, and it's the beginning of a nightmare Cuddy thought he would never face again. With his personal life in turmoil and the investigation of Andrew Dees turni

FROM THE CRITICS

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. (July)

Library Journal

Acting on behalf of successful bank employee Olga Evorova, Boston P.I. John Cuddy (Rescue, Pocket, 1995) scopes out her secretive potential fianc, a reclusive man of no apparent family or heritage. Cuddy's investigation stirs up trouble: representatives of the Milwaukee mob appear on the scene and apply pressure. Various plot complications, including a possible cancer diagnosis for lover Nancy, contribute to a most enjoyable and suspenseful work. Recommended.

Marilyn Stasio