Cozy mysteries have grown in popularity during the past few years, thanks in part to authors like Richard Osman and Joanne Fluke. Osman is the author of the immensely popular “Thursday Murder Club” series, and Fluke is the creator of the “Hannah Swensen” series, which comprises more than 30 books.
Cozy mysteries are a subgenre of crime fiction that are lighthearted, witty whodunnits focused on protagonists who rely on observation skills and intuition rather than forensics and standard crime procedures.
A new entrant into the genre is Irish mystery writer Tom McAndrews, author of “Doocey Half-Sees Whodunnit.” The first in a planned three-book series, the novel features Shamie Doocey, a quirky Irish detective.
only Doocey is no amateur. He’s a long-serving detective for a Dublin police station, though he’s frustrated to be assigned only to small cases involving less serious crimes. His dream is to be given an opportunity on a big case so he can prove he really is a top-notch detective.
His big break comes when the assistant commissioner, impressed with his handling of an earlier missing person case, asks him to review an unsolved case involving the questionable death of a crime writer’s wife.
Shamie Doocey
Detective Doocey is a disheveled, eccentric little man who uses insight and intuition to ferret out the truth in his investigations. Often compared to the late Peter Falk’s Colombo character in the TV series of the same name, Doocey uses his scruffy appearance and social awkwardness to disarm his suspects. His personal eccentricities also cause his colleagues to underestimate him.
In creating Doocey, McAndrew provides readers with an empathetic character they can root for. He uses his physical appearance and on-again, off-again clumsiness to his advantage.
Adding to Doocey’s vulnerability is the challenge of managing his failing eyesight while hiding that fact from his superiors and suspects; he even tries to hide it from his mother, who believes that her son is a diminutive Sherlock Holmes.
A 20-20 Mind’s Eye
Doocey’s big case involves a woman’s disappearance under mysterious circumstances. Assistant Commissioner Mike Ryan was unimpressed with the job done by Doocey’s boss, Ed Dickson. Dickson believes that victim Harriet Nolan either slipped from the western Ireland cliff she'd been walking along or committed suicide by jumping, after which her body was washed out to sea.Apprehensive about the political repercussions if the police get it wrong, Ryan wants Doocey to review the case.
Doocey immediately zeroes in on the victim’s multi-millionaire husband, Markus R. Nolan, an aspiring crime novelist who has a bizarre cleaning fetish and was much older than his beautiful wife. Further adding to Doocey’s suspicions are Harriet’s extramarital liaisons—with her husband’s knowledge.
Other suspects include the two men whom the victim had been seeing and Nolan’s daughter, Jennifer, who despised her stepmother. Jennifer previously had a physical run-in with Harriet, despite Jennifer’s being blind.
Doocey eventually solves the case, but before revealing the specifics, he negotiates a unique arrangement with the assistant commissioner regarding his employment status.
McAndrew provides a couple of surprising twists at the end. They include Doocey’s wreaking a satisfying revenge on those superiors who constantly belittled his detective skills. He also begins an informal partnership with an unlikely individual.
A Unique Protagonist
McAndrew has created interesting characters and some decent plot surprises; however, Doocey internalizes too much, occasionally making the narrative sluggish and stagnant. Doocey’s humorous observations are limited to introspection. He labels people with sarcastic nicknames like “His Lordship, “Doctor Arrogant,” and “Elvis.”His conversations are primarily with his mother, the suspects he interviews, and occasionally his colleagues, none of whom he gets along with except Ber Willson, his assistant on the case.
Will readers empathize with Doocey and his underdog status? Probably. Will they find him memorable as a clever, funny protagonist? Maybe.
McAndrew’s American publisher thinks they will, as Doocey will be back in at least two more books. Coming are “Doocey Can’t See Whodunnit,” involving a murder investigation conducted during a blackout, and “Doocey Turns a Blind Eye to Whodunnit,” where Ireland’s version of Colombo investigates allegations against a former Irish president.
