Treasure Hunt

November 9, 2009
Bestseller Lescroart’s lackluster third Hunt Club thriller (after The Suspect
) finds PI Wyatt Hunt near the end of his rope. Business has slowed to a trickle; Hunt’s relationship with his old high school friend, homicide detective Devin Juhle, is on the rocks; his receptionist, Tamara Dade, has walked out; and Tamara’s brother, Mickey, is his only remaining employee. When Mickey discovers the body of Dominic Como, San Francisco’s most prominent civic activist, he proposes a way for Hunt’s agency to get involved in the murder investigation and perhaps return to solvency. Como’s extensive charities, like the Sunset Youth Project and its subsidiaries, operated with a budget of about $50 million—a sum large enough to put all sorts of murder motives into play. And just how jealous was Como’s wife of her husband’s young and pretty female driver? A labored gathering of suspects, police, and Hunt Club operatives allows Hunt to produce the killer in melodramatic fashion.

December 1, 2009
A month from throwing in the towel, Wyatt Hunt gets a chance to put his faltering private-investigation firm back on the map.

Ever since The Hunt Club made headlines and trod on important San Francisco toes in its first big case (The Hunt Club, 2006), his name has been anathema in police circles, and spooked clients have stayed away too. But when Hunt tells aspiring chef Mickey Dade, his driver and sometime fieldworker, that he's going to have to let him go, Mickey makes a counter-offer. Fresh from discovering the body of wealthy activist/philanthropist Dominic Como, Mickey has heard that Hunt's old nemesis, Inspector Devin Juhle, is looking to pin the murder on Alicia Thorpe, a volunteer at Como's principal charity, Sunset Youth Project (SYP). Hunt could make the rounds of the organizations Como funded, Mickey suggests, get them to put up a substantial reward for information leading to a conviction and ride the attendant publicity back into the limelight. It's a pleasure to watch Hunt—at first diffident, then increasingly confident—persuade the executive directors of Mission Coalition, Sanctuary House and SYP to pony up. In a particularly zesty turn of events, grieving widow Ellen Como adds a substantial sum to the reward even as she's promising to claim the whole pot if her announcement that her husband was carrying on with Alicia closes the case. Alas, it's all downhill from there. Despite a second murder, there's little excitement in Juhle's pursuit of Alicia; The Hunt Club's investigation mainly turns up the unsurprising news that there's a lot of civic corruption in the Bay Area; and the denouement, in which Hunt summons all the leading figures in the case to his office so that he can identify the killer by spotting discrepancies in the suspects' stories, will make you think you've wandered into an antique bookstore.

Worth reading only for Lescroart's customary sharp-edged portrait of the myriad temptations San Francisco offers citizens with money and power.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2009
Lescroart, the author of the New York Times best-selling series starring Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky, introduced new series lead Wyatt Hunt in 2005s Hunt Club. Hunt makes appearances in both The Suspect (2006) and A Plague of Secrets (2009), but he returns to center stage in this new thriller set amid San Franciscos thriving nonprofit world. When the body of Dominic Cuomo is found in a lagoon, the movers and shakers in local charity organizations are shocked. Cuomo had been doing good work for years, sat on the boards of six major charities, and was loved by many. Hunt and his associates decide to run interference for the police, setting up a hot-line number and a substantial reward for any tips leading to an arrest. They have plenty of work cut out for them when they are soon flooded with calls from psychics and crackpots. However, they find any number of suspects when they discover that the nonprofit world is rife with corruption and that beloved do-gooder Cuomo had a soft spot for the ladies. With in-depth characterizations of two loyal Hunt associates, siblings Hunt rescued from their heroin-addicted mother; a lovingly detailed San Francisco backdrop; and an intricately developed plot, Treasure Hunt is sure to satisfy Lescroarts legion of fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)