Doohickey
A Novel
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Nick Fashon is having a bad day. He's just found out his estranged grandfather has died mysteriously in the Arizona desert. Then he meets his potential father-in-law, who turns out to be an ex-cop with a screw loose and a penchant for bean dip. To top it off, he returns home to find his successful clothing shop has just burned to the ground and taken his upstairs apartment with it.
Love & Fashion was Nick Fashon and Vince Love's thriving clothing store until it went up in flames -- the work of an arsonist, police say. Suddenly Nick is homeless and disillusioned, and both the insurance investigators and the police want a word with him. Where can he turn for help? He's wearing out his welcome with his archaeologist girlfriend, Gretchen, who's developing her own suspicions about him. His business partner and best friend, Vince, isn't much help either, as Nick discovers more and more disturbing clues that point to Vince as the one who set the blaze.
Things begin to look up when Nick finds out his eccentric late grandfather has left him an unusual inheritance: a thriving pet-coffin business and a barn full of peculiar inventions, including one particularly interesting doohickey called the HandyMate. The HandyMate is the ultimate kitchen gadget -- a simple tool that can cut, core, chop, slice, and potentially transform the domestic world. Full of entrepreneurial zeal, Nick is determined to see one in every kitchen drawer in America.
But Nick isn't the only one planning to strike it rich with the HandyMate. Yola Fuentes, Nick's grandfather's irresistibly sexy business partner, is so determined to get the HandyMate that she makes Nick an offer he can't refuse. And Robo Fuentes, her jealous ex-husband, has a bullet with Nick's name on it if he takes her up on that offer. Nick quickly finds himself caught in a situation where a twisted thing of plastic might end up costing him his girlfriend, his self-respect -- and his life.
With the help of a cast of colorful characters, master storyteller Pete Hautman delivers a stylish and funny mystery with more twists and turns than the HandyMate itself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hautman's 10th novel (after 2001's Rag Man) is an amiable thriller infused with the author's characteristic wit, equipped with a Rube Goldbergian plot, and featuring a roster of eccentric (to virtually outrageous) characters who keep readers entertained when the story's pace slackens. Nicholas Fashon and his pal Vince Love own a fashionable leather goods store in Tucson, Ariz. Nick's roguish granddad dies, leaving him a inheritance of useless inventions. Useless, that is, with one exception: a doohickey called the HandyMate, which performs numerous kitchen functions most efficiently. Yola Fuentes, a TV chef, is interested in the HandyMate and wants to use it on her TV show. Nick is grateful, especially since the building housing his store and the apartment upstairs containing all his worldly goods has just burned down. The fire department says the cause was electrical, but the insurance company says it's arson and won't pay. In addition, his partner Vince owes money to a scary man called Robo who, after cracking several of Vince's ribs, threatens to kill him for an encore. Nick isn't sure whom to trust. Why would anyone deliberately burn down his store? Nick is a likable and intelligent hero, Robo a suitably menacing villain, and the plot's clever resolution satisfies. This unremarkable novel may not linger long in readers' memories, but it delivers a few hours of enjoyable reading.