The Rule of Law

August 1, 2018

Lescroart stalwart Dismas Hardy is dismayed when ever-dependable secretary Phyllis starts acting strangely, even vanishing at times--just when her brother is released from prison. Then she's accused of being an accessory to the murder of a coyote who smuggled women from El Salvador and Mexico to the United States.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 5, 2018
In bestseller Lescroart’s enthralling 21st Dismas Hardy novel (after 2018’s Poison), the San Francisco attorney is concerned when his long-suffering secretary, Phyllis McGowan, abruptly disappears. In searching her apartment, Hardy discovers that Phyllis has a dangerous hidden life: helping to move illegal immigrants fleeing ICE agents along a present-day underground railroad. When accessory to murder charges are brought against Phyllis, who later resurfaces, for the killing of a dangerous human trafficker, Hardy and his two partners at his newly re-formed law firm seek to save their colleague. Their most dangerous obstacle, however, is not ICE agents or vengeful smugglers but the city’s new District Attorney, Ron Jameson. Determined to convict Phyllis and smear Hardy’s new firm and anyone associated with him, Jameson embarks on a ruthless campaign of planted evidence and false testimony. Hardy must uncover the truth before he and those around him are destroyed by a powerful man with a secret to hide. Sharp dialogue and a timely plot help make this entry a winner. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency.

November 1, 2018
Defense attorney Dismas Hardy's long streak of getting along with everyone on both sides of the courtroom ends with a whimper when his friend Wes Farrell loses his campaign for re-election as district attorney of San Francisco to a rising star who wastes no time changing the rules.Trouble begins quietly enough, with the sudden, unprecedented absence of Hardy's secretary, Phyllis McGowan, from the office. When she returns a few days later, she assures Hardy (Poison, 2018, etc.) that everything's fine. But her arrest as accessory to the murder of thief/extortionist/pimp Hector Valdez says different. It turns out that (1) Phyllis has a younger brother, Adam, she's never mentioned (small wonder, since until six weeks ago he was doing time for armed robbery); (2) she's been serving as one of the conductors on a modern-day Underground Railroad that helps shelter undocumented people from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement; and (3) Celia Montoya, one of the most recent clients she sheltered from both Hector and the feds, has been arrested for killing Hector. Hardy could have sprung Phyllis from jail in an hour while Farrell was in the office, but new D.A. Ron Jameson, stung by Hardy's support of Farrell, is determined to give him a hard time at every turn, and it isn't long before Hardy, announcing, "I want him stopped," is returning his salvos in kind. It would be bad enough if Jameson were only hard-nosed and hostile, but he's hiding a secret that would be death to his political aspirations: Both he and his wife, Kate, have committed murder. Since Hardy is cherishing some long-standing secrets of his own, the story becomes a race to see which of them can pry the other's skeletons out of the closet first in order to pre-emptively neutralize any counterattack.Lescroart plots so cleverly that he has you believing his split-level thriller is really a single foreshortened novel. The perfect read for those who agree that "it's only trouble if somebody's shooting at you."

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November 1, 2018
No-nonsense lawyer Dismas Hardy returns in this excellent thriller. When Hardy's longtime secretary, Phyllis, leaves work one day with no explanation, appears to vanish into thin air, and then returns to the office as though nothing has happened, Dismas is pretty sure something unusual is going on. When Phyllis is arrested and charged as an accessory to murder, he knows there's trouble afoot. Although this isn't exactly a new story?plenty of literary law-enforcement types have labored to prove someone close to them is innocent of trumped-up charges?Lescroart builds a solid case against Phyllis, one that neither Dismas nor the reader can easily ignore. Lescroart's novels are known as much for their abundantly human characters as they are for their rigorously plotted stories, and this one is a showcase for both of those attributes. Also impressive is the way Lescroart has kept his long-running series fresh by allowing Dismas to grow over the years. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lescroart is a certifiable A-lister. His series entries and stand-alones always draw a crowd.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2018

We know from the first page of this newest "Dismas Hardy" novel that attorney Ron Jameson has murdered his wife's lover, and she in turn has killed his partner and made it appear a suicide. Both have evaded detection and now, three years later, Jameson has been elected district attorney of San Francisco and given the opportunity to get back at high-powered lawyer Hardy, who campaigned against him. Hardy's longtime secretary Phyllis is arrested for murder after an undocumented immigrant's death is linked to her clandestine work for refugee sanctuaries. Hardy and his partners, who are familiar to readers of most of Lescroart's many previous novels, must try to free Phyllis and identify the murderer, all while defending themselves against the DA's very real threats to destroy their firm. VERDICT Lescroart (The Ophelia Cut) deftly employs an ensemble cast to reflect a variety of viewpoints, including DREAMers, ICE agents, and current political trends. He skillfully ties it all together, but the ending feels a bit forced. Still, the series' legions of fans will enjoy Hardy's return from a brief retirement. [See Prepub Alert, 7/2/18.]--Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.