Once Dismas Hardy was a cop. Now he spends his days in a lawyer's suit, billing hours to a corporate client in a downtown San Francisco office. Hardy's wife and kids like it that way. Then one client changes everything.
Compassion...
Graham Russo, a former baseball star, is charged with murdering his dying father. Was it suicide, the last desperate act of a dying man? Was it murder? Or mercy?
Murder...
Now, as a carnival of reporters, activists, cops, lovers, and families throng around the case, Dismas Hardy is going to trial with a client he doesn't trust, a key witness he cannot believe, and a system that almost destroyed him once. For Dismas, this case will challenge everything he believes about the law, about his family, and about himself. Because a chilling truth is beginning to emerge about an old man's lonely death. And what Dismas knows could put him next in line to die. . . .
Amazon.com Review
Dismas Hardy, the dart-playing, saloon-keeping lawyer who is one of John Lescroart's most consistently interesting and appealing heroes, faces a dilemma: if he can prove to a jury that Graham Russo helped his father Sal kill himself because the sick old man asked him to, a liberal San Francisco jury will probably vote to acquit Graham of first-degree murder. Hardy would love to plead manslaughter to escape the wrath of the state's attorney general who wants to nail Graham. However, despite the evidence against him, Graham insists he didn't do it. What is a lawyer to do, and who can he believe?
Although Lescroart leads the reader up and down a few blind alleys before the truth comes out, the mystery's not the thing here. It's the characters and their back stories that make this such a good read. Foremost among them is Graham, who washed out of pro baseball and walked out of a promising law career before finding the father who once deserted him long ago. The core of the story is Graham's relationship with Sal, who's losing his mind to Alzheimer's but may still be a threat to a federal judge who was once his closest friend. Then there's Sarah Evans, the homicide cop who falls in love with her suspect. For good measure, there are some changes in the lives of those characters who are familiar to readers from other Dismas Hardy adventures--Abe Glitsky, the half Jewish, half black cop; Drysdale, the D.A. who's been beaten in court by Dismas in previous outings; Frannie, Dismas's wife; Moses, his brother-in-law; and Dismas himself, who becomes more interesting every time Lescroart brings him back. While the pacing is langorous and the denouement not as tight as it might be, The Mercy Rule provides a complex and satisfying reading experience. --Jane Adams
Description:
Justice...
Once Dismas Hardy was a cop. Now he spends his days in a lawyer's suit, billing hours to a corporate client in a downtown San Francisco office. Hardy's wife and kids like it that way. Then one client changes everything.
Compassion...
Graham Russo, a former baseball star, is charged with murdering his dying father. Was it suicide, the last desperate act of a dying man? Was it murder? Or mercy?
Murder...
Now, as a carnival of reporters, activists, cops, lovers, and families throng around the case, Dismas Hardy is going to trial with a client he doesn't trust, a key witness he cannot believe, and a system that almost destroyed him once. For Dismas, this case will challenge everything he believes about the law, about his family, and about himself. Because a chilling truth is beginning to emerge about an old man's lonely death. And what Dismas knows could put him next in line to die. . . .
Amazon.com Review
Dismas Hardy, the dart-playing, saloon-keeping lawyer who is one of John Lescroart's most consistently interesting and appealing heroes, faces a dilemma: if he can prove to a jury that Graham Russo helped his father Sal kill himself because the sick old man asked him to, a liberal San Francisco jury will probably vote to acquit Graham of first-degree murder. Hardy would love to plead manslaughter to escape the wrath of the state's attorney general who wants to nail Graham. However, despite the evidence against him, Graham insists he didn't do it. What is a lawyer to do, and who can he believe?
Although Lescroart leads the reader up and down a few blind alleys before the truth comes out, the mystery's not the thing here. It's the characters and their back stories that make this such a good read. Foremost among them is Graham, who washed out of pro baseball and walked out of a promising law career before finding the father who once deserted him long ago. The core of the story is Graham's relationship with Sal, who's losing his mind to Alzheimer's but may still be a threat to a federal judge who was once his closest friend. Then there's Sarah Evans, the homicide cop who falls in love with her suspect. For good measure, there are some changes in the lives of those characters who are familiar to readers from other Dismas Hardy adventures--Abe Glitsky, the half Jewish, half black cop; Drysdale, the D.A. who's been beaten in court by Dismas in previous outings; Frannie, Dismas's wife; Moses, his brother-in-law; and Dismas himself, who becomes more interesting every time Lescroart brings him back. While the pacing is langorous and the denouement not as tight as it might be, The Mercy Rule provides a complex and satisfying reading experience. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
Lescroart's multilayered 1999 novel, the fifth to feature San Francisco bartender-turned-barrister Dismas Hardy, is a heady brew of courtroom drama, hot topics (assisted suicide), and family dynamics among richly drawn characters. David Colacci, the primary narrator of the series, brings back his renditions of Hardy's easygoing but always intelligent voice and his police lieutenant Abe Glitsky's hoarse delivery, along with introducing a cast of new characters. New interpretations include a gruff, halting speech pattern for fishmonger Salvatore Russo, an Alzheimer's sufferer whose death triggers the plot; the calm, almost beatific voice of Sal's son, Graham, who's charged with Salvatore's murder; and the fluty, aristocratic murmurs of Sal's socially prominent, long-since-remarried ex-wife. Though the author may go a little too far in placing the heroic Hardy in final jeopardy, Colacci maintains the perfect pace throughout, moving us through the thrills to a smooth and satisfying conclusion. A Dell paperback. (Nov.)
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