![]() ![]() Even Beth approves.īut then, that was this series’ secret weapon–it fairly dripped with empathy and compassion. ![]() ![]() ![]() Nancy Meagher, who’s funny and clever and just what Cuddy needs. Not that the entire series is a mope-fest (it never was!), but eventually, Cuddy does get back on his feet, and even starts what looks like a promising relationship with Assistant D.A. Instead, it was a moving and deftly handled moment that made Cuddy, still grieving over Beth’s death, seem all too human. I mean, how many private eyes seek out advice and carry on graveside conversations with their dead wives, discussing his discussing his cases and his life? What could have been a tasteless or cheap, saccharine gimmick was anything but. Because it helped Healy establish his own distinctive voice, creating one of the more memorable and surprisingly touching series and the eighties and nineties. The secret ingredient, it seems, was making Cuddy a grieving widower. He grew up in the Irish-American neighborhood of South Boston, educated by the Jesuits at Holy Cross College, and served in Vietnam as an MP, only to return home to the States and lose his young wife, Beth, to cancer. Private investigator JOHN FRANCIS CUDDY is based in Boston and, at least in the early novels, seemed to have been based quite clearly on that 1980’s Boston success story Spenser. ![]()
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