Rating: 
Summary: Praise from a first time Lescroart reader
Review: In the legal thriller/police procedural, Lescroart weaves an intriguing story with likable, believable, well-drawn characters. This is one of the Dismas Hardy series (I will go back and read the others) featuring Hardy as a low rent but hard working attorney and Abe Glitsky as a police homocide lieutenant with a very personal interest in the murder of up-and-coming attorney Elaine Wager. When the sister of a drug addict, charged with Wager's murder, asks for help, Hardy reluctantly assists. But when the DA asks for the death penalty in an apparent alcohol/drug induced murder, Hardy smells a rat. Actually there are lots of rats in the operation of the San Francisco police department/DA's office, making Hardy's job quite a bit harder to sort through.What is not hard though, is to really like these characters. Hardy and Glitzky are best friends, a truly odd couple. When Glitzky has a heart attack and is suffering with regret for not having contacted his daughter, Hardy is there for him. Also engaging is Elaine's paralegal who turns up helpful clues as well as the villains in the case--I wont spoil it for you by telling who they are. If you like the early Grisham legal thrillers and police procedurals this book is for you. A word of warning: it gets off to a slow start and at 560 pages is best saved for the beach, weekend away or a very long flight.
Rating:
Summary: Praise from a first time Lescroart reader
Review: In the legal thriller/police procedural, Lescroart weaves an intriguing story with likable, believable, well-drawn characters. This is one of the Dismas Hardy series (I will go back and read the others) featuring Hardy as a low rent but hard working attorney and Abe Glitsky as a police homocide lieutenant with a very personal interest in the murder of up-and-coming attorney Elaine Wager. When the sister of a drug addict, charged with Wager's murder, asks for help, Hardy reluctantly assists. But when the DA asks for the death penalty in an apparent alcohol/drug induced murder, Hardy smells a rat. Actually there are lots of rats in the operation of the San Francisco police department/DA's office, making Hardy's job quite a bit harder to sort through. What is not hard though, is to really like these characters. Hardy and Glitzky are best friends, a truly odd couple. When Glitzky has a heart attack and is suffering with regret for not having contacted his daughter, Hardy is there for him. Also engaging is Elaine's paralegal who turns up helpful clues as well as the villains in the case--I wont spoil it for you by telling who they are. If you like the early Grisham legal thrillers and police procedurals this book is for you. A word of warning: it gets off to a slow start and at 560 pages is best saved for the beach, weekend away or a very long flight.
Rating: 
Summary: Lescroart Surprises Again1
Review: In this latest of the Dismas Hardy novels, John Lescroart shows that he is more than up to the challenge of continuing series. He brings back Hardy and Glitsky and a wealth of other characters. In past books he has tended to focus on Hardy or Glitsky as the main charater, but in this outing he gives them equal billing which provides for a nice balance. All of the secondary characters are eqully well developed and Lescroart keeps enough twists and turns going in the plot to keep this book from becoming predictable. Lescroart is by far my favorite author of this genre and with this book out does himself. While many authors would turn to formula and coast through a story this far into a series, Lescroart never lets down. We find out more about Hardy and Glitsk's kids and once again David Freeman is back with a solid contribution. On top of the characterizations there is a very well developed legal story here. Once again Lescroart goes outside the norm and has the bulk of the legal story take place during the preliminary hearing, another neat trick. An excellant extension of the Hardy saga and well recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: a very long book
Review: interesting story about a man who doesn't get to meet his daughter before she dies. he does, however, enter into a may-december romance, enlist the aid of his good friend Dismas (for those of you who are fans this is an on-going story).
There could have been better plot development. instead we get to go to the hearing, where the pace is slow and painstaking, think getting a tooth pulled. i am always up for a good story, but this one was a little too long.
Rating:
Summary: Strong Material
Review: Lescroart has manged to keep his regular characters fresh and consistently interesting. This legal thriller set in San Fransisco is written with great flair. Plenty of legal twists and turns in this well-crafted courtroom drama.
Rating:
Summary: Legal/Detective Thrillers? This Is As Good As It Gets!
Review: Lescroart keeps getting better. I've read all of his books and this may be the best yet. Other reviewers will give you a synopsis of the characters and plot; I like to let the author spin it to you his way. The characters are largely those of his other books, which is a treat in itself. I'd just like to say that the plot is inventive, suspenseful, and ingenious. The payoff and wind-up very satisfying. My only complaint is that there is too much time between Lescroart's novels. A great read!
Rating:
Summary: Murder in the family
Review: Lescroart's character-driven legal thriller, "The Hearing," again features San Francisco's moody African-American/Jewish homicide detective Abe Glitsky and his good friend, defense attorney Dismas Hardy. The story opens with a midnight call to Glitsky reporting the murder of a young assistant DA, Elaine Wager, the victim of an apparent mugging. A suspect, a homeless heroin-addict, was caught in the act of robbing the body, gun in hand. But for Gltizky it's no ordinary case.
Wager was his daughter, though he only discovered the fact a couple years before and hadn't acknowledged himself to Elaine, for vague, unsatisfactory reasons which haunt him throughout the novel.
Glitzky takes out his anger and grief on Cole Burgess, the pathetic murder suspect, extracting a confession, and the DA, New-Age liberal Sharon Pratt, decides to make Burgess the cornerstone of her re-election bid, going for the death penalty. Pratt trumpets her case to the press: Burgess, a homeless white man, kills a prominent, African-American community figure in the course of a robbery.
But Glitzky is having second thoughts. And his friend Hardy has accepted the defense, albeit reluctantly.
The story pits political maneuvering, within the police department and the DA's office, against the demands of justice as Glitzky is suspended for giving the interrogation tape to Hardy and Pratt strives to try the case in the newspapers before going to court.
Lescroart spins a complex web of ambition, greed, posturing and venality around the suspense of investigation, courtroom drama, and conspiracy, while also involving the reader in large human emotions and issues of character.
Pratt is a bit shrill and annoying but Glitzky's dogged honesty and his struggle to understand himself and his grief more than compensate. Lescroart has another well-written winner.
Rating:
Summary: Perry Mason?
Review: Remember the novel "Anatomy of a Murder"? The lawyer defends a man accused of murder who is acquitted, yet we find out at the end that the defendant was guilty of the crime. Hope springs eternal that I will find another shocker of this sort. The norm, however, is that we know the defendant our lawyer hero defends will turn out to be innocent. My mathematical law in this regard is that the innocence of the accused is directly proportional to the amount of evidence against him/her. Will this book fall into this category? I'm not giving away anything by saying that while most of the community wants a hanging, lawyer Dismas Hardy has an increasing belief in his client's innocence. Did the homeless heroin addict kill the beautiful, prominent attorney Elaine Wager? Dismas and his police lieutenant friend Abe Glitsky pursue the case, and find a possible tie in involving child molestation. Everything is going fine here. It's an entertaining, engrossing tale that we trial fans know will end up in some sizzling courtroom scenes. Good guys turn out to be not so good guys. People disappear, people have heart attacks. Good fun. Now comes the bad part. We ultimately find ourselves in a true Perry Mason setting. The problem with such settings is that they make it difficult for me to suspend disbelief. They are situations that just don't seem to happen. I was disappointed with the way the story progressed, and thus have given it fewer stars. Perry Mason fans, however, should buy the book without delay.
Rating:
Summary: First time Lescroart reader
Review: Searching for a new book, the readers recommendations strongly liked this author---so I gave it a shot. Overall I found the book a very good read; good character development, personal interaction between the parties, a compelling "who done it" and I agree with one writer who states that the courtroom scenes were the best. I am definitely going to purchase another of his books for a comparison read.
Rating:
Summary: A rare story.
Review: Tghis one was very rare for Mr. Lescroart. I enjoyed it but it weas a little slow at times. The characters were always the same. The lawyer did have a different aproarch towards his work! A great ending! A gripping thriller. A truely great story... dont begin this one at night!
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