“Battered Spouse” by
Jeremiah Healy from The
Concise Cuddy, Crippen
& Landru, 1998
“Battered Spouse”—which was originally published in the
Fall 1990 issue of Armchair Detective—is Jeremiah Healy’s fifth
published John Frances Cuddy short story. Mona Gage’s husband, Kyle, was
killed in a hit-and-run accident while jogging six days earlier on a quiet country
road. Three men witnessed the accident but none were able to identify the car
beyond the general make and model. The police investigation has gone cold and
Mona wants Cuddy to revive it with some private sleuthing. Cuddy does what
Cuddy does and he interviews everyone involved—the witnesses, Kyle’s boss,
and a few others the police missed—and discovers a thread that ultimately
leads him to the killer. “Battered Spouse” is a solid
whodunit that should have been easier to solve than it was (for this reader,
at least) because the clues were well-placed and the situation, after reading
the conclusion, should have made it obvious. But that’s what makes any
whodunit good—the reader kicking himself for not seeing the culprit before they’re
revealed on the page. Healy’s matter-of-fact style and Cuddy’s likable
mannerisms make the narrative easy-to-read. The climactic ending had a perfectly
ironic twist that was one part funny and two parts surprising. “Battered
Spouse” is easily the best of the four or five Cuddy shorts I’ve read so far. “Battered Spouse” was
nominated for the Private Eye Writers of America’s 1991 Shamus Award for best
short story, but it lost out to Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone tale, “Final
Resting Place.” |
Check out The
Concise Cuddy here at Amazon. |
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