Customer Reviews

Doohickey

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

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.

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!

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

I can't say that this book is really bad. Nor could I say that it's good. It's just okay. The main character and his girlfriend are unbelievably annoying. Nick Fashon is this sometimes wimpy guy who can't see the forest for the trees and puts way too much into his clothing and looks. Not a likeable character at all. Then there's the girlfriend who is really difficult to figure out. She behaves like no woman I know; very difficult to relate to. She's a bland character with no depth to her at all. Then, half way through the book she gets angry at Nick and breaks up with him for the dumbest reasons. A very unrealistic character. No offense to Pete Hautman, whose other books are very good, but this book was so obviously written by a man. She's quite simply a caricature of a women, or , more accurately, a stereotype of a woman from the perspective of a man who has no clue about women. If I were a man I'd have dumped her first! And for the life of me I don't know why the author would set this story in Arizona. I can't think of a more boring, drepressing setting.

I was always on the verge of setting the book down and not returning to it but it kept me just interested enough to get me through to the predictable ending. I don't mind predictable endings, not every story has to be a surprise. At best I'd say it was cute.

A doohickey is something hard to describe.

This book isn't bad, and it isn't great. This book isn't really a crime story. It isn't really a serious book. It isn't particularly funny. It doesn't really have a strong or surprising ending.

This book is a doohickey.