Review by Booklist Review
Lescroart is giving John Grisham a run for the legal-thriller sweepstakes with his Dismas Hardy series. In his latest outing, San Francisco defense attorney Hardy, coping with a newly emptied nest and a returned-to-work wife, is asked by a judge to clean up the caseload of a missing attorney and soon finds himself plunged into a consuming homicide investigation. The caseload includes an appeal to overturn the conviction of Second Lieutenant Evan Scholler for two murders (of an ex-navy SEAL and a private contractor) while stationed in Iraq. As usual, Hardy teams up with best buddy Abe Glitsey, a former homicide cop now deputy chief of police, in solving the murder. Although the detectivus ex machina device is the one strained element in the Hardy series, this installment works splendidly on so many other levels. Hardy is such a compelling character that he easily holds together a plot that moves back and forth from Iraq (the Iraq scenes are wrenchingly realistic) to San Francisco. The pacing is excellent, never losing the reader, even with the complexities of the plot. And the relationship between Hardy and his detectivus, considered on the human level, gives a lot of comic relief and great cop patter to what could have been an overly somber story. A great read.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of the adrenaline-infused 10th thriller to feature DA Dismas Hardy (Dead Irish, etc.) from bestseller Lescroart, Hardy agrees to wrap up some of the caseload of a Bay Area lawyer who has mysteriously disappeared. After discovering that the lawyer was set to appeal an apparently straightforward murder case, Hardy realizes that the crime had its origins in Iraq, where the alleged killer and his victim first met. With the help of his old friend, Det. Abe Glitsky, Hardy learns that the victim, ex-navy SEAL Ron Nolan, was sleeping with the girlfriend of National Guard Reservist Evan Scholler, who was later convicted of killing Nolan. As Hardy and Glitsky dig deeper, they discover that Nolan had committed several murders himself, and it's up to Dismas and Hardy to unravel the conspiracy that may have roots in the U.S. government. Lescroart weaves his trademark complicated yet fast-moving tale, full of believable characters and crisp dialogue. A first-rate addition to the author's ongoing series, this should please both longtime readers and new fans. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Did National Guardsman Evan Scholler really kill contractor Ron Nolan? And did Nolan really make a dreadful mistake that caused the death of an Iraqi family and half the men in Scholler's platoon? Handed Scholler's appeal, Dismas Hardy just has to find out. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Bay Area lawyer Dismas Hardy's first starring role since The First Law (2003) tackles a controversial subject: the independent contractors making a killing in Iraq. Even though he was defended by hotshot attorney Aaron Washburn, it's no wonder that Evan Scholler was convicted of murdering Ron Nolan in 2005. The two men had been close in Baghdad: Scholler an ex-cop National Guard lieutenant whose unit was deployed to Iraq with no clear mission, Nolan a contractor for Allstrong Security who inveigled the unit into accompanying his hefty cash pickups. But their friendship shattered when Nolan, having seduced Scholler's ex-girlfriend Tara Wheatley back in the States, provoked an ambush that decimated Scholler's group and left him with a brain injury. When he finally learned the depth of Nolan's perfidy, Scholler vowed to kill him, and all the evidence indicates that he did. Three years after Washburn's unsuccessful defense, Charlie Bowen, the attorney preparing Scholler's appeal, vanished. Now, after six months, he's been declared incompetent to file the appeal, which has been assigned to Hardy. After sitting out most of the opening 300 pages, Hardy settles down to sift through reams of documents, most of them damning. Eventually he notices a sinister pattern: Several minor figures associated with the case (an ex-SEAL with Allstrong, an Iraqi middleman, Charlie Bowen's suspicious wife) have died violently, leaving behind no evidence of who killed them. Was Scholler framed after all? Of course he was--and although it's pretty obvious who did the job and why, it's a pleasure watching Hardy pick up the scattered pieces and fit them together. Sturdy wartime intrigue, subpar courtroom drama, little mystery, much righteous (and infectious) anger. A great case, but a decidedly mixed verdict. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
