Poison A novel

Review by Booklist Review

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.--Murphy, Jane Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

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. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

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 © Copyright 2017. 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.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

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 familysons Gary and Gene, daughters Grace and Gloriabut 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. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Poison 1 IF OPENING DAY wasn't the happiest landmark in Dismas Hardy's year, he didn't know what was. From the time he was eleven--when the Giants had arrived in San Francisco--until he was eighteen--the year before his father died--he had never missed attending the yearly ritual with his dad, first at Seals Stadium and then at Candlestick Park. Adding to the mystique, in an era that pretty much ignored the concept of father-son bonding, Hardy's father had considered this time he spent with his only son a major priority, far more important than the vicissitudes of everyday life, including his own job or his son's time in the classroom. The renegade in Joe Hardy had believed that a man must keep his priorities straight, and some rules were made to be broken. He had no problem declaring Opening Day a de facto holiday, regardless of the opinion of the administrators at his son's schools. He would pass this flexibility along to his son. For Dismas, those days in the company of his father, watching big-league baseball in person, were among the most cherished experiences of his young life. It didn't matter that they had occurred in the cramped bandbox of Seals Stadium or the freezing wind tunnel that was Candlestick Park. Great as those days had been, he thought that this one was better. Part of it, of course, was AT&T Park, which to his mind was essentially the platonic ideal of the ballpark. (Although, of course, how could Plato have known?) His seats, courtesy of a client who'd moved to Oregon and sold his season tickets to Hardy to keep or sell off as he saw fit, were as good as it got--in the last row on the Club Level, fifty feet from the broadcast booths, shaded from the sun and occasional drizzle, mere steps from the closest bar. He looked down at the sun-drenched field, warm and windless at the moment, a half hour to go until game time. Five minutes ago, the band Train had sung "Save Me, San Francisco" and now attendants were clearing the bandstand from the infield. Some of the players were still doing wind sprints or long toss out in left field. Soon his son Vincent (impossibly, twenty-six years old and playing hooky from his job at Facebook) would return carrying two beers, a couple of bratwurst, and an order of garlic fries. Hardy dabbed at his eye and took a breath against a wash of emotion. By all rights, he knew he shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be alive at all. About a year before, he'd taken two bullets--one to his chest that had bounced off a rib that deflected it away from his heart, and one superficially to the side of his head--bloody but not serious. These last couple of bullet wounds made it four in his lifetime, surely more than the average allotted number for a mostly sedentary sixty-something lawyer, albeit a former Marine whose first experience of getting shot, in the shoulder, had come while he was pulling a guy who would become his brother-in-law out from under enemy fire in Vietnam. But still . . . Four? * * * TROGLODYTE THAT HE was, Hardy had completely turned off his cell phone nearly an hour earlier, as soon as the Opening Day festivities and announcements had begun. Vincent, who could probably survive without air for longer than he could live if he were not connected to the cloud or the World Wide Web or whatever, for the first four innings kept up a steady and knowledgeable patter with his father about the game, his job, his girlfriend Jennifer, and the general state of his physical and mental health--all good. At the same time, his thumbs never seemed to stop tapping the face of his iPhone. Finally, with the Giants coming up in the bottom of the fourth, Hardy could stand it no more. "Who are you talking to all this time?" "Everybody." "About?" "Whatever." "Work?" "Sure. A little." "I thought you were taking the day off." "I am." "But you're also working?" "Dad. Really? Come on. That's the great thing about my job. I don't have to be there. I mean physically." "So what about here, where you are physically?" "What about it? I'm having a great day with my old man, having some brewskis, watching the ball game. I'm totally here right now. Bottom of the fourth coming up, three to two, Padres. You're thinking about cutting back to half-time for the summer. The Beck's had two offers to change firms and turned them both down. Mom's joined a women's hiking club and you think they're pushing it too hard. But if you want, I can go dark." "Not necessary." "But you'd prefer it?" "No," Hardy lied. In fact, he would have preferred it, but far more important to him was that he didn't alienate his son, to whom this was the norm, and who was, after all, living in the world in which he'd been raised. "I just need to get used to it. Multitasking in the modern age." "But you already are. Here we are, watching the game, you and me catching up on the home stuff, enjoying our beer. I'd call that multitasking, too. Wouldn't you?" He looked down at his phone and chuckled. "What?" Hardy asked. "Just a text from Ron." His roommate. "Saying?" "You really want to know?" "Sure." "Okay. Why'd the cowboy buy a dachshund?" "I give up. Why?" "He wanted to get a long little doggie." Hardy's lips twitched up slightly. "Good one," he said, though not, he thought, necessarily worth the interruption. Like so much of the rest of it. But continuing to push the conversation in that vein, he knew, was not going to be a fruitful line of discussion. He was just an old fart, unfamiliar and--it seemed suddenly, only in the past couple of years--slightly uncomfortable with the way so many of the young people he knew were living. He was the one who had to get over it, change with the times, go with the flow. "Hey," he said, getting to his feet, "I'm on a mission for another beer. You want one?" Vincent's thumbs were back flying over his phone's screen; looking up for the briefest of instants, he nodded absently. "Sounds great." Excerpted from Poison: A Novel by John Lescroart All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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