Fatal

October 24, 2016
Bestseller Lescroart (The Fall and 18 other Ditmas Hardy novels) successfully blends a police procedural with a whodunit in this absorbing standalone. A few days after meeting at a dinner party in San Francisco, Kate Jameson, who’s married, phones lawyer Peter Ash about a private legal matter and suggests they rendezvous at a downtown hotel, where she has a room. After they end up having sex, Kate doesn’t want a repeat, but Peter becomes obsessed with her. Soon afterward, Kate and her best friend, Beth Tully, a San Francisco homicide inspector, survive a terrorist attack. Six months later, Beth and her partner, Ike McCaffrey, are called to a beach where Peter’s body has washed up. The corpse, which was in the water for over a day, has a bullet hole in the chest, but the bullet is missing. With so little to work with and alibis abounding, Beth and Ike make slow progress. The challenges for the protagonists lend verisimilitude to the story and give it a satisfying rhythm. Lescroart keeps readers guessing until the very end. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency.

February 27, 2017
Lescroart’s new San Francisco–set standalone thriller is pretty much the ultimate literary exploration of the domino effect. Kate Jameson, who’s married, seduces Peter Ash, whom she just met at a dinner party. To her their nooner was a momentary amusement, but it unleashes a long-subdued satyriasis in Peter. A few months later, when his bullet-ridden body washes up on a beach, a police investigation ensues, led by SFPD Sgt. Beth Tully, who also happens to be Kate’s best friend. Theater actor Roy spins the combination of police procedural and modern-day morality tale smoothly, effectively dramatizing Lescroart’s highly charged passages—among them an unexpected terrorist shooting spree in a lunchroom where Beth and Kate are chatting. It’s a while before Beth and her investigation take command of the novel. Until then, Roy uses a coolly objective approach to the unpleasantly self-involved Jameson and Ash families. His approach is much warmer and more natural once Beth takes center stage, along with her equally likable partner Ike and her potential paramour Alan. Roy understands the other characters are there to serve the plot, but Beth and her people are the book’s heart and soul. An Atria hardcover.

October 15, 2016
After dishing out 20-plus cases to San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy and his friends and relations (The Fall, 2015, etc.), Lescroart pens a stand-alone whose Bay Area is just as tense and treacherous even if you're not part of the justice system.Inspector Beth Tully, SFPD, is part of that system, of course. But her best friend, MBA housewife Kate Jameson, is far outside it, at least until she confides in Beth that she's been fantasizing about a man she and her husband, Ron, met the other night at the home of Ron's law partner, Geoff Cooke, and his wife, Bina, a man whose last name she doesn't even know. Beth naturally tells her to forget about him; Kate naturally phones Bina and gets his name and phone number; one thing leads to another; and in record time, Kate and attorney Peter Ash are bedded down in the discreet Meridien Hotel. Since neither wants to hurt their families, they both promise that their one-afternoon stand will remain just that and that neither one will say a word. Finis--except that Kate, who won't let the affair go, starts calling Peter again, producing exactly the effects she swore she'd avoid. Meanwhile, life goes on: domestic complications await Peter, his wife, Jill, and their high school twins, Eric and Tyler; a gang of terrorists shoots up the Ferry Building, seriously wounding both Kate and Beth; and six months later, police fish Peter's body out of San Francisco Bay, maybe a gunshot suicide, maybe not, triggering a search for whomever might have been responsible for his death and the other deaths that follow. Lescroart manages the first movement of this cautionary tale by mixing his pitches with exquisite control. Once the homicide investigation kicks in, things become altogether more routine, though he still has a few nifty surprises in store for fans who'd expect nothing less.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from October 1, 2016
Kate meets Peter at a dinner she attends with her husband and becomes intrigued with the charming, married man. She wants a little fling and sets out to seduce him. She succeeds, then ends things quickly, but she's awakened the beast in Peter. A few days later Kate is having lunch with her closest friend, Beth, a cop, and the women are caught up and severely injured in a terrorist attack in the busy San Francisco restaurant, which is near Peter's office. That event, coupled with his brief tryst with Kate, convinces Peter to leave his wife and family and follow through on all his sexual desires, even though Kate has rebuffed him. Months later, Kate and Beth are both recovering from their injuries when they hear that Peter has been murdered. Beth is assigned the case, and, while her partner cares for his sick child, she follows every lead, getting nowhere fast. These characters are well drawn, and Beth would make a great continuing character should Lescroart choose to rest his Dismas Hardy series. On its own, this is a terrific stand-alone thriller that melds police procedural with plenty of suspense and action, and it should appeal to Harlan Coben or Gillian Flynn fans.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lescroart by the numbers: 18 New York Times best-sellers; more than 12 million copies sold; translated into 22 languages in 75 countries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2016

A New York Times best-selling author of multiple series, with the Dismas Hardy series perhaps the best known, Lescroart here offers a stand-alone. When Kate attends a dinner party with devoted husband Ron, she meets Peter (there with his wife) and is wildly attracted to him. Her obsession leads to a burning one-night stand, after which Kate pulls back, sure she can get on with her life. But not so fast. A masked man shooting up the cafe where Kate sits with her best friend is only the first of several incidents indicating that Kate has made a grave mistake.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2016

With his new stand-alone, Lescroart takes an infrequent step away from the lives of lawyer Dismas Hardy and his pal Abe Glitsky (last seen in The Fall) to introduce Sgt. Beth Tully of the San Francisco homicide squad. Beth is a hardworking single mom whose longtime friend Kate Jameson initiates an affair with a married man named Peter Ash six months before he is murdered. Beth and partner Ike McCaffrey are assigned to investigate the killing, propelling Beth into the uncomfortable position of interrogating Kate in a manner that barely falls short of accusation and causes a painful rift between the friends. What follows is a complicated turn of events that brings about the deaths of two more victims before Beth and Ike are able to sort through their growing list of suspects. VERDICT True to form, Lescroart handles his multiple story lines with aplomb, enticing readers to leave Dismas Hardy behind--for now. [See Prepub Alert, 7/18/16.]--Nancy McNicol, Hamden P.L., CT

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.