Invasion of Privacy

COAST-TO-COAST ACCLAIM FOR JEREMIAH HEALY AND
    RESCUE

    “RESCUE is Healy at his best—a richly textured, superbly unfolded tale.... Cuddy is a beautifully rounded character: tough, resourceful, witty, and not afraid of deep feelings.... in RESCUE... he’s called upon to exercise every one of his formidable skills.”
    —Robert A. Carter, Houston Chronicle

    “Brilliant.... I’ve always wished Jerry Healy well, but not this well.”
    —Robert B. Parker

    “A doozy.... The story unfolds beautifully, and tensely, from its seductive opening.... The tension is palpable, the writing elegant yet clipped, the action, when is comes, [is] violent, vicious and explicit. The ending, with its muted victories, is very moving.... This is exciting, thoughtful, wily fiction.”
    — Paul Skenazy , Washington Post

    “Healy writes explosive action scenes.... The ending... is gosh-damed uplifting.... Not that Healy skimps on the villains: the fundamentalist baddies that Cuddy encounters will set your teeth on edge.”
    —JoAnn C. Gutin, San Jose Mercury News (CA)

    Healy sustains the private-eye tradition very nicely indeed.”
    —Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times

    “In a world where values are constantly shifting and slipping, John Cuddy hangs on to his code of honor with the ferocity of those bold knights of yore. Jere-mish Healy puts Cuddy through his most rigorous test of valor in RESCUE.... [but] the workout doesn’t rattle his brains.... It may seem strange to find this compassionate hero hauling out the heavy artillery, but even the gentlest knights have to sharpen their swords.”
    —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

    “[Healy’s] latest is a humdinger.... Deeply touching.... A lot of skillfully laid-on local color... a slam-bang climax.... The writing is deft and clean, the.... action bloodcurdlingly convincing and the zany Keys atomosphere is caught better than anyone has done it since HJohn D. MacDonald.”
    —Publishers Weekly

    “Fascinating.... That oh-so-sexy private sleuth John Cuddy makes a welcome return.... RESCUE is a fine story, reminiscent of Nancy Pickard’s... Confession. ”
    —Toby Bromberg, Romantic Times

    “Healy tells a good story, and like Robert B. Parker and William Tapply, uses Boston to good effect.”
    —Robin W. Winks, Boston Globe
    “[A] fine series.... Healy explores the darkest corners of the human heart… several of the characters literally shine from the pages and burn into memory.”
    —Mary Cannon, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery

Other John Cuddy novels by Jeremiah Healy

    Blunt Darts
    The Staked Goat
    So Like Sleep
    Swan Dive
    Yesterday’s News
    Right to Die
    Shallow Graves
    Foursome
    Act of God
    Rescue
    Invasion of Privacy

    Published by POCKET BOOKS

    For orders other than by individual consumers, Pocket Books grants a discount on the purchase of 10 or more copies of single titles for special markets or premium use. For further details, please write to the Vice-President of Special Markets, Pocket Books, 1633 Broadway, New York , NY 10019-6785 , 8th Floor.

    For information on how individual consumers can place orders, please write to Mail Order Department, Simon & Schuster Inc., 200 Old Tappan Road , Old Tappan, NJ 07675.



The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized, if you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

    Copyright © 1996 by Jeremiah Healy

    All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas , New York , NY 10020

    ISBN: 0-671-89874-4

    First Pocket Books hardcover printing October 1997

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

    POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

    Printed in the U.S.A

For Bonnie, still the best

1

    T he woman choosing one of the client chairs in front of my desk was attractive without being beautiful or even pretty. Wearing a gray herringbone business suit, carefully tailored, over a white blouse and Christmas-ribbon bow tie, she seemed around forty.