Review by Booklist Review
Lescroart, the author of the New York Times best-selling series starring Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky, introduces a new series character here. Wyatt Hunt is an embittered ex-caseworker in San Francisco, dismissed from Child Protective Services in a dispute with his boss. He is now at the first stages of recovering from this blow, which threatens not his love of salary or sense of self but his mission to save the most vulnerable castoffs in the city. It's pretty standard in mysteries, and even cliched, to have somebody wrongly fired (usually from the police) sink into seclusion or the bottle and then move into private-eye work as a way back to life. This premise gives the character a depth of expertise to draw on and, theoretically, a sufficiently cynical outlook on life. Lescroart draws on this tradition by having his hero drawn out of his seclusion by a homicide inspector friend asking him to look into a murder. The murder is pretty juicy--a federal judge and his mistress are both found dead in his home. One of the suspects is a lawyer/TV crime commentator whom Hunt has a crush on and who suddenly disappears. Hunt works with a loose group of friends, all with different backgrounds and expertise, to solve the judge's murder and the lawyer's disappearance. Hunt is the narrator, much given to long-winded descriptions of his thought processes. This works great with Spenser, but it's boring with Hunt, who hasn't emerged enough from his self-pity to be a credible sleuth, although his child-services background gives him the ability to read motives in surprisingly insightful ways. Enjoyable plot but unconvincing detective. Lescroart fans will be interested, even so. --Connie Fletcher Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The heroes of Lescroart's popular Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series (The Second Chair; etc.) have reached the point where age and professional success keep them from the gritty street-level investigations that made their adventures so good. While promising that he hasn't abandoned the duo, Lescroart keeps the action high by inaugurating a new San Francisco series, starring private investigator Wyatt Hunt and homicide detective Devin Juhle. Longtime Lescroart fans can relax: these pals are at least as interesting and enterprising as Hardy/Glitsky. Hunt's eccentric pack of friends and associates (aka the loose organization known as the Hunt Club) are investigating the murder of a federal judge and his young girlfriend. What would normally be a job for the police becomes personal after Hunt's love interest, who has connections to the judge, goes missing. Both Hunt and Juhle have appropriately troubled pasts: Hunt was forced out of a career as a child protective services officer, and Juhle is trying to live down a shoot-out that killed his last partner. As a PI, Hunt is free to detect in unorthodox and entertaining ways, while Juhle brings to bear the technical and logistic resources of official law enforcement. Most readers will agree that it's a great combination, both on the job and on the page. (On sale Jan. 24) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
(See Prepub Mystery, LJ 9/1/05) (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
Lescroart takes a break from the long-running adventures of San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy and Lt. Abe Glitsky (The Second Chair, 2004, etc.) to audition a new detective hero. Wyatt Hunt worked for Child Protective Services until a politically connected boss forced him out even though he loved the work and was good at it. When he saw his chance for revenge, Hunt took it, shifted gears to get his p.i. license, opened an agency called the Hunt Club, with an unofficial annex of justice-minded friends--and never looked back. But his interest in the murders of aging federal judge George Palmer and Staci Rosalier, the much younger waitress His Honor had just given a diamond necklace, is more personal than professional. While Inspector Devin Juhle, a Hunt Club veteran from SFPD Homicide, is running around trying to pin the shootings on either the judge's widow or the hardnosed prison guards' union he was investigating, Hunt rescues TV lawyer Andrea Parisi from an embarrassing night on the town and takes her to bed hours before she vanishes from the face of the earth. What connection could her disappearance have with the double murder and the spreading stain of corruption Juhle finds beneath it? Lescroart's eye for Bay Area graft is as far-reaching and unerring as ever; conspiracies seem to lurk under every parked car in the city. Though well-connected complications keep slipping in, however, the solution is disconcertingly simple, disappointingly limited in scope and impact and readily spotted from as far away as the Golden Gate Bridge. Inside a story as big and loose-limbed as any of Dis and Abe's cases, Lescroart has hidden an uncommonly detailed story of his hero's origins and a much smaller case of double murder. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
