Courtrooms and Coverups (The Hearing - John Lescroart)

Member Name: eleanorofnaboo

Product:	The Hearing - John Lescroart
Date:	22/03/02 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: characters known through series

Disadvantages: -

Abe Glitsky is head of homicide, he is called out in the middle of the night to a street just off Union Square, San Francisco, where a body of a young woman lies in a heap. The body is that of ex Assistant DA and now top lawyer Elaine Wager. When patrol cops find her body, drunken heroin addict Cole Burgess is standing over her, with her jewellery in his pocket and a gun in his hand. Glitsky is desperate for this perp to go down, Elaine is his daughter - a secret that has been kept from everyone (including himself until very recently). It's an open and shut case, body, perp, weapon, motive - they can't go wrong!

Dismas Hardy is brought onbaord as Cole's lawyer (a bit of a conflict of interest as he is a long term friend of Glitsky) Through this friendship he hears that Elaine was Abe's daughter and because of his passion to get this perp, the confession might not be strictly kosher - and might not infact be even true, something which eventually leads to Abe's suspension and subsequent heart attack.

The book follows the DA's zeal to get Cole the death sentence no matter what, Abe's unofficial investigation into other leads, Dismas's investigations and employment as Cole's Lawyer, the friends and colleagues that Elaine left behind and of course the string of dodgy-lawyers, guns and drugs you would expect!! Excellent court-room action.

You also see into the families of each of the main characters; Dis with his wife Frannie and two children, Beck, who is a typical twelve year old and worried about anything and everything, and Vincent. Abe with his kids, Orel, Isaac, Jacob and his nanny/housekeeper Rita.

This is the eighth (I think) novel featuring Dismas Hardy and I think it is definitely one of the better ones. John Lescroart writes really well and appears to know his stuff (to someone that has no clue of the legal system I seems to make sense to me!!). The book is filled with detail. For
those who have not read any of the previous books, each character and story is explained well enough that you would not feel like you were missing things, but for those who have read them and been though all the ups and downs before, there is not so much information that it would bore you.

The characters all interact well, new and old alike. The story plot is good with no major plot twists, Dis & Abe are such good investigators that these sorts of things don't crop up at the end of the book to surprise you, but often there is a small twist and you usually have to wait for the motive etc!!

I have loved all of these books and just like the rest I recommend this one to everyone, especially anyone who reads things like the Harry Bosch novels by Michael Connelly, the Alex Delaware/Milo Sturgis novels by Jonathan Kellerman and the Patrick Kenzie/Angie Gennaro novels by Dennis Lehane.

Here's the technical bit:
The Hearing by John Lescroart
ISBN 0-7472-5977-1
£6.99
532 pages
Headline Feature Paperback

Summary: