I've been reading Lescroart's Dismas Hardy series for years. Lescroart's characters are the main reason I continue reading; they are always well-developed and complex. His ensemble cast includes Dismas Hardy, Abe Glitsky, Wes Farrell, Wyatt Hunt, Gina Roark and others. In different novels, different characters take precedence, but the network of friendships, intertwining careers, and cases keep the semblance of a real world with all of its interconnectedness, alliances, and collaborations.
Over the years, characters have changed, career paths have altered, and children have grown up. This novel may indicate an important change because Rebecca ("the Beck"), Dismas Hardy's daughter now grown and an associate at Hardy's law firm, takes a prominent role. Because Lescroart has allowed his characters to age and change as if they were real people, we may be seeing the initial steps in the changing of the guard.
Plot: The death of a young African-American woman adds to the increasing media pressure in San Francisco concerning failures in the arrest and conviction in African-American homicides. There is plenty of incentive to solve the case quickly and avoid the media glare and the accusations of those with a political agendas. The struggle between swift and thorough is felt throughout the investigation.
Rebecca Hardy ends up defending Greg Treadway, middle-school teacher and CASA volunteer (Court Appointed Victim Advocate) for the victim's brother. He had dinner with the victim shortly before her death. Did the rush to find the killer cause the arrest of an innocent man?
I admit that the reference to John Milton (especially since the title of the book is The Fall) clued me in on the killer early in the book, but I like that kind of thing.
Despite the fact that I love all the back stories of the various characters and having that feeling of reuniting with old friends each time, these books all function perfectly well as stand alones. This isn't my favorite, but maybe I'm not quite ready for the changing of the guard, not ready to let my older friends in the series to begin taking a back seat to the younger generation.
Read in February; blog post scheduled for April 2o.
NetGalley/Atria Books
Mystery/Legal Thriller. May 5, 2015. Print length: 320 pages.
I like reading books with interesting characters, and that we see them develop as the series go. That's one of the good things about reading series, though I've to admit I'm never really good in following them. Most of the times I started reading the meddle of the series first, lol.
ReplyDeleteI started this series (and so many others) in the middle, too. I read all the library had at the time and kept looking for new ones on the "new book shelf." Now, I get the new installments from NetGalley.
DeleteI am trying to remember if I kept my set of Lescroart books or if I gave them away. I have yet to try this author, but I know he's popular. I hope I still have them. I like series that focus on multiple characters (not all at once necessarily) over the course of the books. But I also think I would be sad if I was in your shoes, having read the series for so long and seeing the younger generation taking the focus more and more. It's just not the same.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether to be happy or sad. It is certainly a way to keep a fresh outlook, but there is also something a little sad about the changing of the guard.
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