Doohickey : A Novel

By Pete Hautman

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743400240
• ISBN13: 9780743400244
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Engaging, funny, light-hearted, good local color

Nick Fashon, the young, handsome and charmingly vain co-owner of a clothing store called Love & Fashion, with his partner, Vince Love, finds himself sole heir to the estate of his barely-known grandfather, a desert rat whose invention, the doohickey of the title, may possibly be a money-maker. This drives a plot with wacky, funny, wise-cracking characters like an ambitious Latina TV cooking show hostess, an archaeologist girl-friend, a hick lawyer who is a wannabe dude, all in a mildly twisted mystery plot. There is an awful lot of talk about mouth-watering food in the book and you'll find yourself inexplicably hungry throughout, hankering for menudo or huevos rancheros washed down with margaritas grandes. And you'll enjoy the well-described Tucson scene. Not in the same league as mysterydom's big-hitters, but worth an evening's read nonetheless.Scott Morrison

A Gaggle of Zany Characters

Pete Hautman is able to create distinctive, often loony, characters who drive an engaging plot that wraps up all of the loose ends by its conclusion. Nicholas Fashon, around which the plot revolves, has inherited the rights to his grandfather's all-purpose kitchen gadget the Handy Mate (one of many doohickey inventions the old man fiddled around with). Getting the Handy Mate manufactured and marketed is Fashon's goal to make it big, but there are many roadblocks in his way, including a violent loanshark, a sexy female chef, and the police who suspect Fashon of torching his apparel store for insurance money. The book's humor is derived from twists in the plot and nonsensical situations between Fashon and a number of secondary characters, in a similar vein to earlier Hautman books. It is highly enjoyable, and good for a laugh or two every few pages.

A Very Entertaining Read

Pete Hautman has a real knack for creating off-the-wall characters and great plots. Nick Fashon must deal sexy gals, a shady lawyer (of course!), a barrio thug, and friends who desert him in his time of need. The twists and turns of this novel will keep you reading (and chuckling) with every page. It has a similar comedic punch as Hautman's other fun read, Mrs. Million. Highly recommended!

fun crime comedy

After years of having no financial security at all, Nick Fashon believes he's about to have it all. He and his friend Vince own a fashion store, Love & Fashion, a place that is very popular. Nick is seeing Gretchen, a beautiful offbeat woman he thinks he's in love with and she with him.All Nick's dreams go up in smoke when the store is gutted by fire. Nick was living in the apartment above the store and lost everything because he didn't have renter's insurance. The store's insurance won't pay up until they're assured arson wasn't the cause of the fire. Nick becomes obsessed with producing, marketing and selling his late grandfather's kitchen gadget, the handy mate as a way of bringing in income to the point he might lose everything he holds dear including his life.Pete Hauteman has carved out a very unique niche with this crime comedy. The author doesn't take himself to seriously so he allows his readers to have a good time while reading about characters that are funny because they get themselves into such ridiculous predicaments a la Abbot and Costello movie. DOOHICKEY is the perfect title for this special book.Harriet Klausner