Doohickey [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Pete Hautman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003

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.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From 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.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

When his clothing store and apartment go up in flames, Nick Fashon loses everything. The insurance company refuses to pay, so Nick is forced to move in with his archaeologist girlfriend, Gretchen, and must consider a new line of work. Then he gets a call from the executor of his grandfather's estate, which consists of a shack in the desert and a raft of screwy inventions, including a kitchen gadget dubbed the Handy Mate. Nick sees this doohickey as his ticket to big money, especially after cooking maven Yola Fuentes agrees to plug it on her TV show. Gretchen, however, is convinced that the seductive Yola is after more than a business deal. When Nick begins attending late-night meetings and coming home half-sloshed, she gives him the boot. Now he must contend with both money trouble and heartbreak as he tries to salvage his pride. Hautman (Rag Man [BKL S 1 01]) delivers another entertaining comic mystery that benefits greatly from deadpan humor; likable, eccentric characters; and a moral cleverly cloaked by the twisting plot. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 423 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786249277
• ISBN-13: 978-0786249275
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,714,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Okay, here's some miscellaneous personal info. I'll try to be as brief as possible. I was born in 1952 in Berkeley, California, or so I am told (I don't really remember). At age five I moved to St. Louis Park, Minnesota where I went to Cedar Manor Elementary School (also the alma mater of Al Franken and the Coen brothers, and no, they are not close personal friends of mine) and eventually graduated honor-free from St. Louis Park High School. This is so tedious. Why do you keep reading? For the next seven years I attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the University of Minnesota. Contrary to recent news reports, I did not graduate from either institution. After college I worked various jobs for which I was ill-suited, including sign painter, graphic artist, marketing executive, pineapple slicer, etc. Eventually, having exhausted other options, I decided to write. My first novel, Drawing Dead, was published in 1993. Today, I live with mystery writer and poet Mary Logue in Golden Valley, Minnesota and Stockholm, Wisconsin. We have two small dogs (are you still reading?) named Rene and Jacques. There you have it. Fifty-plus years compressed into a few short paragraphs. Feel free to copy and paste for your book report, but don't tell anybody I suggested it. Need to know more? Check out the FAQs page on my website at http://www.petehautman.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gaggle of Zany Characters, December 24, 2002

By 

A. M. Sulkin (wayne, nj USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doohickey : A Novel (Hardcover)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fun crime comedy, October 7, 2002

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doohickey : A Novel (Hardcover)

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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone Needs a Doohickey, January 29, 2008

By 

Get Out in the Sun "Historical Fiction Fan" (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doohickey : A Novel (Hardcover)

I picked this book up because Hautman's "Rash" appeared in the "recommended for you" section of my Amazon page. Intrigued, I decided to read an adult novel by same. Hautman does a great job on his fashonista(sic), Nicky. I have seen many of his ilk skulking around Tucson. He is dead-on with all of his characterizations, and even has the talk down correctly, I can hear Yola and Robo talking now. Hautman leads the reader on, never quite telling the whole story; can a mysteriously dead grandfather's mysterious invention save the hero from financial ruin? Who will get a share in the Pillsbury give-away? Just how many kinds of salsa can you make with the HandyMate?

Anyone who knows where to park to visit the Shanty has spent more time in Tucson than they are fessing up to. But I draw the line at driving to Sierra Vista for mexican food, there's too much good stuff on south 4th to warrant a drive waaay down the freeway. I just think the author wishes HE had a corvette to toodle around So. Arizona in. Janos thinly disguised as Platanos is too funny. Hey Pete, come back to Tucson and visit La Encantada, there's got to be some skull duggery afoot there. Murphy never meant faux-Scottsdale to be built in the neighborhood.