Poison

October 16, 2017
In bestseller Lescroart’s satisfying 20th Dismas Hardy novel (after 2016’s The Fall), the San Francisco attorney, who’s recovering from two gunshot wounds and looking forward to retiring soon, can’t resist defending a former client, Abby Jarvis, against a murder charge. After committing vehicular manslaughter more than a decade earlier and serving 22 months in prison, Abby has cleaned up her act, become a parent, and landed a steady job as a bookkeeper for a plumbing and fixtures company. After Abby’s boss, wealthy Grant Wagner, recently died, apparently from a heart attack, his daughter Gloria questioned that conclusion, given her father’s healthy lifestyle. The autopsy that Gloria pressed for revealed that Grant was poisoned with aconite, and Abby, who stood to inherit $1 million, was subsequently indicted for the crime. Believing Abby innocent, Hardy begins to search for plausible alternative suspects. Though the final reveal won’t shock veteran genre readers, Lescroart does a good job of balancing the whodunit plot line with well-developed portrayals of both major and secondary characters. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency.

December 1, 2017
Back in the saddle after a brief hiatus for the stand-alone Fatal (2017), San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy spends most of his time wishing he weren't. And he's not the only one.Half a generation ago, Hardy represented Abby Jarvis when her drunken driving got her charged with vehicular homicide. She did her time, got out of prison, and landed a job as bookkeeper with Grant Wagner, who owned Pipes & Valves plumbing supply. Now Wagner has died, and the cause wasn't the heart attack it first seemed to his family--sons Gary and Gene, daughters Grace and Gloria--but aconite poisoning, which a tox screen Gloria requested finally caught. The younger Wagners can't believe Abby could have killed the man who gave her a second chance, but neither can they believe the killer is one of their number, and somebody has to take the rap. So Abby once more calls Hardy, who takes the case for peanuts and then watches the pile of evidence against his client grow and grow. The defense's only hope, it seems, is that the case will somehow turn out to be linked to the shooting of David Chang that leads off the story but feels like an extra limb. And eventually it is, though not in an especially ingenious or revealing or persuasive way. By that time, though, Hardy's own son Vincent's friendship with Chang has Hardy's wife, Frannie, demanding that her husband walk away from the case, and when he thinks back over the times his friends and relatives have been scalded by the violent crimes he deals with (The Fall, 2015, etc.), he can see that she has a point. Now if only there were a way to get Abby off before the deadline for Hardy's decision came due....Though it lacks both the sociological scope and the double-barreled plotting of Lescroart's best, this relatively routine, expertly handled case is still well worth your time.

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March 26, 2018
Roy, a reader new to the Dismas Hardy series, is oddly unemotional in his rendition of Lescroart’s 20th book featuring genial San Francisco defense attorney Hardy and his pals. The mystery revolves around the death of Grant Wagner, the wealthy owner of a plumbing-supply company, who was killed using an uncommon poison, aconite. Circumstantial evidence points to his bookkeeper and former lover, Abby Jarvis. Though Hardy has promised his wife to stay clear of trials involving murder, he feels compelled to help Abby, a client from long ago, so he hires private eye Wyatt Hunt to snoop around Wagner’s sons and daughters and gather info on two other murders that occurred after Abby’s arrest. A connection could set her free. Much of the popularity of these novels comes from the personalities and abiding friendship of easygoing Hardy, quirky district attorney Wes Farrell, and humane, impatient homicide detective Abe Glitsky. All of that is present, though Roy doesn’t quite nail the distinct charm of each character, while the genuinely funny banter among them also falls flat. The novel has well-developed characters, cleanly detailed San Francisco locales, and a sturdy whodunit plot, but it’s a bit shy on suspense and thrills, a point underlined by Roy’s unruffled recitation. An Atria hardcover.

November 15, 2017
In 1989, Lescroart introduced us to San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy, and then, in turn, to Hardy's crime-fighting colleagues, including Abe Glitsky, Wyatt Hunt, and Devin Juhle, and he has brought them all forward through time in more than 20 skillful legal suspense novels. Hardy has been trying to ease into retirement following two gunshot wounds (The Fall, 2015), but before long he finds himself entangled in an intense family drama, with a $25-million inheritance at stake, while defending a former client who has been indicted for murder. He experiences some conflict of his own at home when his wife, Franny, who is, ironically, a marriage and family counselor, reaches her limit with Dismas' danger-drenched life. The narrative flows effortlessly and includes a Perry Mason-worthy moment when Hardy manifests a bit of courtroom magic. Lescroart is a perfect choice for readers who enjoy great ensemble casts.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2017

After three decades as a San Francisco attorney, encouraged by his wife, Dismas Hardy is slowing down while recovering from gunshot wounds from an earlier case. Then Abby Jarvis, a former client, is arrested for the murder of her wealthy lover/employer Grant Wagner, and Hardy is drawn to her case. Two other murders make it clear Abby isn't the killer. Seeking a connection among all three crimes and feeling that his own family may be endangered, Hardy is desperate to make something happen. The Wagner adult children are squabbling over finances, blackmail looms, and nearly everyone has a secret. Not even his policeman friend Abe Glitsky nor his investigator Wyatt Hunt fully appreciate Hardy's situation. In this 17th of the Dismas Hardy legal thrillers (after The Fall), Lescroart avoids much courtroom action, instead relying heavily on the recurring secondary characters familiar to fans of earlier titles, with the San Francisco setting another character. Plenty of attention is given to Hardy's family relations and his wife's unhappiness with his work. VERDICT Readers may guess the solution well before the author reveals it, but Lescroart's fans still will enjoy this one.--Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

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