Off-Season and Other Stories [Hardcover]

This eleven-story mystery collection consists of nine shorts, one longer short tale and a novella. The longer short story ("Proportionate Response") and the novella ("Off-Season") are published for the first time while the remaining stories were all released in various publications in the last five years. Each of the eleven entries is well written and contains the trademark Jeremiah Healy final twist, but the book belongs to the two never seen before longer tales.

"Proportionate Response". Not long after he retired from the military Colonel Raymond Hammett lost his beloved Hildy, who died in an air crash. Two years after he buried her, he still mourns her and privacy is all he wants. However, his neighbors, the preadolescent Peele brothers (Jeff and Curt) steal his canoe ending his hermit life. After "consulting" with Hildy as he always does the Colonel calls the police to locate his vessel and to capture the thief, not knowing why Hildy encourages him to bring wine. This is a tale of thievery and counter theft.

"Off-Season". After intense work involving a mob killing, Boston Sergeant Detective Kevin Malley goes to Ste Marie, Macaroon in the Caribbean on vacation. While he spends the night with an islander, someone murders Faith Bressler, a guest of the Bayview Hotel. Inspector Paul Gant questions fellow guest Kevin, who has an airtight alibi. Insisting he lacks homicide expertise, Paul asks Kevin to help on the murder case. Kevin quickly agrees not realizing that the inquiries will make him friends with a gecko. This is a superb police procedural with a twist that is realistic that no one will see coming.

Harriet Klausner

This is quite a good collection of short stories. While nothing in here would be considered a masterpiece, unlike most collection of stories where on or two are sensational and the rest average all in this collection are enjoyable enough. Healy writes in a straight forward style with these stories, there are no twists at the end, you know what is going to happen but the characters are interesting enough that the journey there is what it is all about. The title story is the longest and probably could have been a bit shorter about a police officer whose room in next door to a homicide and gets roped in by the inexperienced local force. In fact all the stories in here pretty much deal with murder or crime in one way or another. Next Season is the story of an avid scuba diver getting over his cheating wife, Proportionate Response has two thieving kids picking the wrong victim when they steal a canoe, Habits has a bank robbery baffling the law, City Life deals with a stalker in a gym with a lone female worker, Him Gone Good is the way a cat deals with its owner's boyfriend who is cheating on his wife, Hero deals with a low IQ'd court officer who is propositioned by a mafia wife to kill her husband, The Safest Little Town in Texas deals with another dimwit criminal who thinks he has stumbled upon the ultimate town to commit an armed robbery and Rotten to the Core has an apple farmer seeing his future go down the drain as his widowed mother is being talked into unprofitable ways by a new attractive male worker.

Off-Season is a good enough read if you're stranded in airport or somewhere and want something easy and quick to read.