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The Suspect
When a marriage headed for divorce ends in homicide‚ no alibi can clear the surviving spouse — but the right attorney just might. After a weekend at his cabin on Echo Lake‚ Stuart Gorman returns home to find his wife Caryn floating dead in their hot tub. Homicide inspector Devin Juhle is called to the scene and soon learns that Gorman had recently asked for a divorce and that the couple had a $3 million insurance policy. A gambling man would bet that Stuart Gorman didn't stand a chance. But then a betting man might not have tangled with Dismas Hardy's law firm — and in particular‚ with Gina Roake.
Hardcover
First published January 16, 2007
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About the author
John Lescroart
141 books1,302 followersJohn Lescroart (born January 14, 1948) is an American author best known for two series of legal and crime thriller novels featuring the characters Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky.
Lescroart was born in Houston, Texas, and graduated from Junípero Serra High School, San Mateo, California (Class of 1966). He then went on to earn a B.A. in English with Honors at UC Berkeley in 1970. In addition to his novels, Lescroart has written several screenplays.
Lescroart was born in Houston, Texas, and graduated from Junípero Serra High School, San Mateo, California (Class of 1966). He then went on to earn a B.A. in English with Honors at UC Berkeley in 1970. In addition to his novels, Lescroart has written several screenplays.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 228 reviews
April 2, 2021
500 pages of unrelieved dullness. No character is interesting or likable. So little actually happened. Everything significant, what minimal amount there was, happened "off" the page, until the penultimate chapter when a trap was set for the killer, involving a garage door opener. Yet this scene was too confusing to follow.
Annoyances and oddities:
- Everyone calls the head police detective "Inspector," which made me feel like I was in a British police procedural. Never before have I read a book or watched a TV show or movie in which an American detective was called "Inspector."
- Someone's daughter "was in diapers until she was almost eight." Wut? Why? She is later diagnosed as bipolar. Are these two things connected?
- A woman wears "rope-belted chinos" and a tank top because they "would be good for seduction - almost pajama-like, revealing her curves, accentuating the muscle tone...." This outfit screams early 90s. The book was published in 2007. Are these the clothes of seduction? Are "pajama-like" clothes seductive? Do pajamas show one's muscle tone? It's almost like a man wrote this. A blind man, actually.
Then there was this weird aside about a fat man: "His lips were outsize too - purplish, wet and swollen, though this didn't appear to be a function of fat but of heredity, which made Hunt wonder, since the trait was singularly unattractive. He would have thought that people with those lips would have had more significant trouble finding a mate than their competitors, and that over time they would have selected themselves out of the gene pool."
June 15, 2017
A good beach read. I guessed the murderer but some of the details in the story did surprise me. This was my first time reading John Lescroart and I will definitely check out some of his other books.
May 4, 2019
Another SOLID legal thriller and police procedural from John Lescroart swirling around the Dismas Hardy circle...This one features Dismas' law partner and fiancé of the late David Freeman, Gina Roake...and to a lesser extent "Hunt Club's" Wyatt Hunt...Gina is fighting for her legal "sea legs" & getting her life back on track following David's death that occurred in Lescroart's "The First Law"...Gina takes on a homicide case of a naturalist writer who's accused of murdering his orthopedic surgeon wife...Good Stuff!!!
March 21, 2023
A Hemingway type author is having marital problems. When his wife is murdered, he doesn't have an alibi, and he's the primary suspect. He hires a struggling lawyer to represent him.
Seemed out of date, even though it's a fairly new book.
Seemed out of date, even though it's a fairly new book.
March 16, 2020
finished 16th march 2020 good read three stars liked it kindle library loaner have read several from lescroart enjoyed them all...though this one there is that business with the daughter and daughter's boyfriend...scene clearly implied they were...there, involved thought nothing comes of it. i read that wrong?
August 19, 2016
This is sort of a murder mystery and courtroom drama novel. It has some action,
suspense, complex characters and realistic portrayals of police procedure and
courtroom strategies. This book is from 2007 and if you enjoy courtroom drama you'll
like this one. I enjoyed the story and gave it a 3.5.
suspense, complex characters and realistic portrayals of police procedure and
courtroom strategies. This book is from 2007 and if you enjoy courtroom drama you'll
like this one. I enjoyed the story and gave it a 3.5.
February 7, 2018
I felt this book was super slow. Stuart was a very annoying character, along with his daughter. The book could have definitely been cut shorter. While the ending had a twist, by the time you get there you just don’t care. Not John’s best work !
April 22, 2017
Meh. My first Lescroart book. I found it to be quite boring and the characters were dull and not very likable. I may try another of his books - hoping for a little more excitement next time around.
February 10, 2018
Wyatt Hunt, Dismas Hardy, the usual characters. Enjoyable read and a decent mystery. I did anticipate the perp's identity but not too soon. Much of this is about an outdoorsy husband, his dead wife, found in a hot tub, naked, and Gina Roak, an attorney and partner in the Hardy lawfirm. Recommend.
March 28, 2025
Always enjoy reading John Lescroart’s books.
Read
June 21, 2022After 3 days I couldn't get past page 25. Just didn't grab me. Will maybe try to read a gain later.
July 7, 2025
The Suspect by John Lescroart is a murder mystery and courtroom thriller set in contemporary San Francisco, with main characters familiar from both the author's Dismas Hardy and Hunt Club mystery series: Gina Roake, Dismas Hardy, Wyatt Hunt, homicide detective Inspector Devin Juhle.
“Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.” —GEORGE BERKELEY
Stuart Gorman's wife, a super-achiever orthopedic surgeon, wants a divorce. He's furious; for years he has put up with her arrogant controlling personality and many crises with their high-maintenance bipolar daughter. He takes off for his cabin in the mountains near Lake Tahoe, to relieve his anger. It doesn't work; so he drives home. At home, he finds her dead in the hot tub.
He calls the police. Tells them everything he knows about the last few days - how he was furious and stormed away. Little does he realize that being up-front and wholly candid with the police makes him the prime suspect! The police don't need or want to dig deep and find another; they have adequate circumstantial evidence for a case.
Gina Roake is still recovering from the death of her beloved David. She had been a defense lawyer for decades, but has never tried a murder case. She takes on Stuart's case primarily because she liked his book and believes he's innocent (despite experienced legal friends' best advice). She makes a few more costly mistakes; he's arrested without chance of bail.
The prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the death was murder and that Stuart committed it. The press already has him guilty beyond any doubt. For his defense, Gina doesn't have to prove someone else did it, but she does have to present a reasonable case supporting that possibility.
it wasn’t uncommon for an associate to put in twelve hours on the clock in order to bill eight of them.
She's so busy reviewing case material, she doesn't have a chance to investigate the victim's business, her new invention, a quality control crisis a "whistleblower" reports to Stuart, shortly before her death. Stuart investigates, but can't get far before he's jailed.
for her lunches a couple of small loaves of San Francisco sourdough, a block of cheddar cheese, a chub of Italian dry salami. Heaven.
It's frustrating and suspenseful to see the prosecution push a circumstantial case against Stuart, willfully choosing to ignore evidence pointing away from the easy suspect. Has Gina been away from the law too long, lost her edge as a defense attorney?
The law is not about the fact of guilt or innocence. It’s about the settlement of disputes.
She was back in the game with that rara avis, the innocent client. This was going to be fun.
This book is listed as a standalone novel in GoodReads and on the author's website, but apparently Gina and David (David's death) are from book 9 of the Dismas Hardy mystery series.
Freeman didn’t appear to be joking when he said that he liked to think of himself as mythically ugly. During the six months she had lived with him, she couldn’t think of a more attractive man of any age. Objectively, he was a frog, but she could see only the prince.
Lou’s wife, Chui, sought on a daily basis to meld the disparate culinary cultures of her own China and her husband’s Greece with original and, it must be admitted, creative dishes such as Sweet and Sour Dolmas, or Pita Stuffed Kung Pao Chicken, or mysteries such as the famous Yeanling Clay Bowl. Whatever a yeanling was. Often edible, but just as often not, the food was not why people gathered at Lou’s.
“In what way exactly have you not been the perfect husband?”
San Francisco’s homicide rate—with about two killings every week—was not comparable, say, to Oakland’s, eleven miles across the bay, with its two hundred and twenty murders a year.
The ambient temperature in the medical examiner’s lab was fifty-five degrees. Since this was very close to the average San Francisco temperature regardless of season or time of day or night, most of the time visitors to the morgue were dressed in enough layers of clothing that they didn’t notice the chill.
“I thought under the rules we were supposed to look older as time went by.”
Solitude without loneliness. That was exactly what she felt when she went up to the mountains. Because Stuart's books shared the same philosophy, Gina believed in his innocence.
“You see much else in life that works the way it’s supposed to, let me know, and I’ll buy stock in it.”
It was warm today, but you never knew. This was San Francisco, and it could be midwinter by dinnertime.
why, she wondered, was it always these guys with a kind of slippery personal morality who got drawn to high-level politics? And, all too often, elected?
But she consoled herself with the fact that at least Abrams hadn’t simply brought his case before the grand jury, when no defense attorneys, and no judges even, were allowed to be present. It was a truism that by using the grand jury, a district attorney could “indict a ham sandwich.”
[the medical examiner] Over the course of his forty-year career he'd probably spent a total of a full year actually testifying while sitting on the hard wooden chair in the witness box. The inherent drama of the situation—pronouncing upon the exact cause of a violent death—had long since clearly lost its power over him to enthrall. Looking at him now as he took the oath, Gina thought that if he were any more relaxed, they’d have to wake him up.
But as he liked to say, this was his favorite sort of problem: somebody else’s.
She had the feeling that the pursuit of Stuart did not spring from any sense of justice, but from a belief that he was vulnerable, convictable, and that was all that mattered—he’d be another notch in the belt, that was all. Justice was nice. Something everyone hoped for and even usually attained. But it was fundamentally a by-product of a system designed effectively to settle disputes short of clan warfare. If a conflict could be resolved by a conviction, and that was apparently the case here, then a warm body who could be convicted was all the system demanded. And once those wheels were set in motion, they inexorably rolled on.
She couldn’t let this case be about conflict resolution, a simple verdict. It was going to have to be about the truth. And so Gina risks her life to get the police to finally pay attention to the facts.
TODAY’S SPECIAL AT LOU THE GREEK’S was Salt-Baked Merides—oven-roasted baby smelt over rice, served with a searingly spicy sweet red sauce on the side. The consensus at Gina’s table—herself, Hardy, Farrell and Jeff Elliott in his wheelchair—was that possibly because she had done essentially nothing to a fresh and delicious single ingredient, Chui had conceived and executed her best-ever Greek/Chinese meal. The novelty of the unexpectedly excellent food brought the table to silence for a moment.
Kymberley was whining again, still wound up and endlessly needy. He [her boyfriend] might have to try to talk her into taking some of the lithium, although it brought her down and got her off her high, when she’d get as boring as she was exciting now. But this was the thing, he knew, that made her so difficult at certain times and so kind of fascinating at others. You just never knew what her reality was going to be. Gina thought that there was no winning with this young woman.
Gina wasn’t going to let herself get sucked into that negative thinking. She might be alone here, all right, but she was a damned competent lawyer who’d beaten many a man before. And, she told herself, this time she had the truth on her side. Okay, guys, she thought, I’m ready. Bring it on.
Like most other of his fellow professionals in the field of criminal justice, Hunt found that his sympathy over any one person’s individual misfortune—Stuart’s, Bethany’s, Juhle’s—usually got subsumed in the pure joy of the absurdist theater of it all.
“Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.” —GEORGE BERKELEY
Stuart Gorman's wife, a super-achiever orthopedic surgeon, wants a divorce. He's furious; for years he has put up with her arrogant controlling personality and many crises with their high-maintenance bipolar daughter. He takes off for his cabin in the mountains near Lake Tahoe, to relieve his anger. It doesn't work; so he drives home. At home, he finds her dead in the hot tub.
He calls the police. Tells them everything he knows about the last few days - how he was furious and stormed away. Little does he realize that being up-front and wholly candid with the police makes him the prime suspect! The police don't need or want to dig deep and find another; they have adequate circumstantial evidence for a case.
Gina Roake is still recovering from the death of her beloved David. She had been a defense lawyer for decades, but has never tried a murder case. She takes on Stuart's case primarily because she liked his book and believes he's innocent (despite experienced legal friends' best advice). She makes a few more costly mistakes; he's arrested without chance of bail.
The prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the death was murder and that Stuart committed it. The press already has him guilty beyond any doubt. For his defense, Gina doesn't have to prove someone else did it, but she does have to present a reasonable case supporting that possibility.
it wasn’t uncommon for an associate to put in twelve hours on the clock in order to bill eight of them.
She's so busy reviewing case material, she doesn't have a chance to investigate the victim's business, her new invention, a quality control crisis a "whistleblower" reports to Stuart, shortly before her death. Stuart investigates, but can't get far before he's jailed.
for her lunches a couple of small loaves of San Francisco sourdough, a block of cheddar cheese, a chub of Italian dry salami. Heaven.
It's frustrating and suspenseful to see the prosecution push a circumstantial case against Stuart, willfully choosing to ignore evidence pointing away from the easy suspect. Has Gina been away from the law too long, lost her edge as a defense attorney?
The law is not about the fact of guilt or innocence. It’s about the settlement of disputes.
She was back in the game with that rara avis, the innocent client. This was going to be fun.
This book is listed as a standalone novel in GoodReads and on the author's website, but apparently Gina and David (David's death) are from book 9 of the Dismas Hardy mystery series.
Freeman didn’t appear to be joking when he said that he liked to think of himself as mythically ugly. During the six months she had lived with him, she couldn’t think of a more attractive man of any age. Objectively, he was a frog, but she could see only the prince.
Lou’s wife, Chui, sought on a daily basis to meld the disparate culinary cultures of her own China and her husband’s Greece with original and, it must be admitted, creative dishes such as Sweet and Sour Dolmas, or Pita Stuffed Kung Pao Chicken, or mysteries such as the famous Yeanling Clay Bowl. Whatever a yeanling was. Often edible, but just as often not, the food was not why people gathered at Lou’s.
“In what way exactly have you not been the perfect husband?”
San Francisco’s homicide rate—with about two killings every week—was not comparable, say, to Oakland’s, eleven miles across the bay, with its two hundred and twenty murders a year.
The ambient temperature in the medical examiner’s lab was fifty-five degrees. Since this was very close to the average San Francisco temperature regardless of season or time of day or night, most of the time visitors to the morgue were dressed in enough layers of clothing that they didn’t notice the chill.
“I thought under the rules we were supposed to look older as time went by.”
Solitude without loneliness. That was exactly what she felt when she went up to the mountains. Because Stuart's books shared the same philosophy, Gina believed in his innocence.
“You see much else in life that works the way it’s supposed to, let me know, and I’ll buy stock in it.”
It was warm today, but you never knew. This was San Francisco, and it could be midwinter by dinnertime.
why, she wondered, was it always these guys with a kind of slippery personal morality who got drawn to high-level politics? And, all too often, elected?
But she consoled herself with the fact that at least Abrams hadn’t simply brought his case before the grand jury, when no defense attorneys, and no judges even, were allowed to be present. It was a truism that by using the grand jury, a district attorney could “indict a ham sandwich.”
[the medical examiner] Over the course of his forty-year career he'd probably spent a total of a full year actually testifying while sitting on the hard wooden chair in the witness box. The inherent drama of the situation—pronouncing upon the exact cause of a violent death—had long since clearly lost its power over him to enthrall. Looking at him now as he took the oath, Gina thought that if he were any more relaxed, they’d have to wake him up.
But as he liked to say, this was his favorite sort of problem: somebody else’s.
She had the feeling that the pursuit of Stuart did not spring from any sense of justice, but from a belief that he was vulnerable, convictable, and that was all that mattered—he’d be another notch in the belt, that was all. Justice was nice. Something everyone hoped for and even usually attained. But it was fundamentally a by-product of a system designed effectively to settle disputes short of clan warfare. If a conflict could be resolved by a conviction, and that was apparently the case here, then a warm body who could be convicted was all the system demanded. And once those wheels were set in motion, they inexorably rolled on.
She couldn’t let this case be about conflict resolution, a simple verdict. It was going to have to be about the truth. And so Gina risks her life to get the police to finally pay attention to the facts.
TODAY’S SPECIAL AT LOU THE GREEK’S was Salt-Baked Merides—oven-roasted baby smelt over rice, served with a searingly spicy sweet red sauce on the side. The consensus at Gina’s table—herself, Hardy, Farrell and Jeff Elliott in his wheelchair—was that possibly because she had done essentially nothing to a fresh and delicious single ingredient, Chui had conceived and executed her best-ever Greek/Chinese meal. The novelty of the unexpectedly excellent food brought the table to silence for a moment.
Kymberley was whining again, still wound up and endlessly needy. He [her boyfriend] might have to try to talk her into taking some of the lithium, although it brought her down and got her off her high, when she’d get as boring as she was exciting now. But this was the thing, he knew, that made her so difficult at certain times and so kind of fascinating at others. You just never knew what her reality was going to be. Gina thought that there was no winning with this young woman.
Gina wasn’t going to let herself get sucked into that negative thinking. She might be alone here, all right, but she was a damned competent lawyer who’d beaten many a man before. And, she told herself, this time she had the truth on her side. Okay, guys, she thought, I’m ready. Bring it on.
Like most other of his fellow professionals in the field of criminal justice, Hunt found that his sympathy over any one person’s individual misfortune—Stuart’s, Bethany’s, Juhle’s—usually got subsumed in the pure joy of the absurdist theater of it all.
June 23, 2011
In The Suspect, John Lescroart puts the spotlight on a previously marginal character in this series, that of Defense Attorney Gina Roake. A partner in the firm of Dismas Hardy, who started the series, Gina's had plenty of courtroom experience, but none on a murder case. She cuts her teeth on the defense of Stewart Gorman, a writer of wilderness books. When he returned home from his cabin, where he had retreated to recover from wife Caryn's announcement that she wanted a divorce, Stewart finds her lifeless body in their hot tub. Naturally the police, lead by detective Devin Juhle, consider the husband the prime suspect, and the circumstantial evidence does seem to support that theory. But Caryn had many complicated business relationships, and Gina believes Stewart's claims of innocence. With the assistance of the law firm's investigator, Wyatt Hunt, she makes it a point to search for another viable suspect. But for the reader, Stewart's innocence is not so clear.
The Suspect is fast paced, logically laid out. Among author Lescroart's strengths are his ability to create sympathetic, credible characters, punchy dialogue, and easy to follow courtroom scenes, even when there are no explosive revelations to be had. There are is an unforeseen but welcome surprise at the end, one that promises some interesting developments in future novels. Solid, smart, and compelling, this is a legal thriller that holds one's interest from start to finish.
The Suspect is fast paced, logically laid out. Among author Lescroart's strengths are his ability to create sympathetic, credible characters, punchy dialogue, and easy to follow courtroom scenes, even when there are no explosive revelations to be had. There are is an unforeseen but welcome surprise at the end, one that promises some interesting developments in future novels. Solid, smart, and compelling, this is a legal thriller that holds one's interest from start to finish.
September 20, 2009
This is my first Lescroart book and perhaps I did not make a wise choice in selecting it, or perhaps I am too critical since I appear to be one of the few reviewers who thought this book less than brilliant.
First and foremost, the characters are not very interesting.....in fact some of them are down right exasperating.
The homicide cop, Devin Juhle, is stereotypical (I've made up my mind so don't confuse me with the facts!).
The suspect, Stuart Gorman, does things that are just plain stupid (no, I will not give him the benefit of the doubt and call him naive). If people went to jail for stupidity.....this man would be serving 20 years.
As for the defense attorney, Gina Roake, she flirts with most of the men in sight when she is not muddeling her way through devising a stategy to clear her client and trap the real killer. Ah yes, the real killer, am I the only one who was not suprised when the "reveal" came?
In addition, Mr. Lescroart used his novel as an opportunity to make a few "political" observations and comments.
The only thing that I really got out of this novel was some sage advice concerning a certain Greek-Asian fusion restaurant located near the Hall of Justice.....that serves the worst food in town. If it exists, I will not be eating there.
First and foremost, the characters are not very interesting.....in fact some of them are down right exasperating.
The homicide cop, Devin Juhle, is stereotypical (I've made up my mind so don't confuse me with the facts!).
The suspect, Stuart Gorman, does things that are just plain stupid (no, I will not give him the benefit of the doubt and call him naive). If people went to jail for stupidity.....this man would be serving 20 years.
As for the defense attorney, Gina Roake, she flirts with most of the men in sight when she is not muddeling her way through devising a stategy to clear her client and trap the real killer. Ah yes, the real killer, am I the only one who was not suprised when the "reveal" came?
In addition, Mr. Lescroart used his novel as an opportunity to make a few "political" observations and comments.
The only thing that I really got out of this novel was some sage advice concerning a certain Greek-Asian fusion restaurant located near the Hall of Justice.....that serves the worst food in town. If it exists, I will not be eating there.
February 18, 2014
Man, I have got to start reading these books in order! While I assume that these books will be Abe Glitzsky books, Abe’s name was mentioned but he never made an appearance. Dismas Hardy and Wes Ferrell made small appearances but this book was about Gina Roake and her first client one year after her fiancée was murdered.
The client was recommended by an old flame and adversary, state legislator, Jedd Conley. Although Gina’s partners have always warned her to think of every client as guilty or it would end up breaking her heart, Gina feels that her new client, writer, Stuart Gorman is innocent of his wife’s murder. Using the office’s investigator, Wyatt Hunt, Gina sets out on an adventure of learning, finding the true murderer and culprit of the crime.
When Gina realizes who the true murderer is, she sets a trap that nearly kills her…..
I have read just one Wyatt Hunt book, and I assume this could be considered to be a Wyatt Hunt book also, while that one was good, this one was excellent! A true 5 star rating is deserved!
The client was recommended by an old flame and adversary, state legislator, Jedd Conley. Although Gina’s partners have always warned her to think of every client as guilty or it would end up breaking her heart, Gina feels that her new client, writer, Stuart Gorman is innocent of his wife’s murder. Using the office’s investigator, Wyatt Hunt, Gina sets out on an adventure of learning, finding the true murderer and culprit of the crime.
When Gina realizes who the true murderer is, she sets a trap that nearly kills her…..
I have read just one Wyatt Hunt book, and I assume this could be considered to be a Wyatt Hunt book also, while that one was good, this one was excellent! A true 5 star rating is deserved!
June 19, 2015
De Verdachte was een erg leuk boek om te lezen! Ik zat heel snel in het verhaal en het hele boek was ik er ook echt mee bezig of Stuart nou schuldig is of niet. Ik heb heel lang gedacht dat hij het natuurlijk niet heeft gedaan, maar richting het einde begon ik toch steeds meer te twijfelen. Ik irriteerde mij lichtelijk aan rechercheur Devin Juhle omdat hij alleen Stuart als verdachte ziet en niet verder kijkt. Ze hebben zijn personage dus goed geschreven als vervelende rechercheur.
Je leest het boek vanuit verschillende perspectieven. Zo weet je goed hoe iedereen over bepaalde situaties denkt en wat ze ook hebben gedaan in een bepaalde situatie.Het boek wordt een thriller genoemd, maar eigenlijk vind ik dat best wel meevallen. Er hangt een bepaalde spanning tussen de personages, maar echt spannend vind ik het niet. Ik vond het verhaal wel goed in elkaar stekken en leuk om te lezen. Ik ben er heel vlot door gegaan, maar mega spannend is het niet. Het is meer de drama tussen Gina die voor het eerst een moordzaak behandeld, stugge rechercheur Devin Juhle en de verdachte Stuart
Je leest het boek vanuit verschillende perspectieven. Zo weet je goed hoe iedereen over bepaalde situaties denkt en wat ze ook hebben gedaan in een bepaalde situatie.Het boek wordt een thriller genoemd, maar eigenlijk vind ik dat best wel meevallen. Er hangt een bepaalde spanning tussen de personages, maar echt spannend vind ik het niet. Ik vond het verhaal wel goed in elkaar stekken en leuk om te lezen. Ik ben er heel vlot door gegaan, maar mega spannend is het niet. Het is meer de drama tussen Gina die voor het eerst een moordzaak behandeld, stugge rechercheur Devin Juhle en de verdachte Stuart
June 7, 2008
I thought I would be disappointed when I realized that Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky were not going to be major characters in this book. Not!!!!!!!!!!!
Enter Gina Roake, a tough but very human partner in Dismas Hardy's firm. Widowed when David Freeman, the firm's founder, is murdered, she's taken three years to get over her grief and moves on by taking on a high profile murder case.
The story progresses quite well as do most of Lescroart's books, a lot of character development, excellent court room scenes, believable dialogue. Towards the end, I had a hard time putting it down. Fairly surprising ending, actually two endings with all the loose ends tied up so we can get back to Dismas and Abe, I hope.
I notice some of the reviews I read expressed disappointment, not me. I'm sure most Lescroart fans and those trying him for the first time will feel rewarded when they finish this story.
Enter Gina Roake, a tough but very human partner in Dismas Hardy's firm. Widowed when David Freeman, the firm's founder, is murdered, she's taken three years to get over her grief and moves on by taking on a high profile murder case.
The story progresses quite well as do most of Lescroart's books, a lot of character development, excellent court room scenes, believable dialogue. Towards the end, I had a hard time putting it down. Fairly surprising ending, actually two endings with all the loose ends tied up so we can get back to Dismas and Abe, I hope.
I notice some of the reviews I read expressed disappointment, not me. I'm sure most Lescroart fans and those trying him for the first time will feel rewarded when they finish this story.
February 4, 2017
This is billed as a Wyatt Hunt book and, while he plays a part, the book really belongs much more to Gina Roake, one of the lawyer's in Dismas Hardy's firm, and her client, Stuart Gorman. This book reads exactly like one of the Hardy series books to the point of including an entertaining preliminary hearing including testimony and cross-examination. Lescroart has stretched out a bit using characters from the Hardy series and, for me, it works very well.
July 20, 2012
The perfect vacation book, I devoured it in a couple of days. If you are looking to give your brain a break while on holidays and are on The Hunt for a good legal thriller this is just the ticket. Snappy dialog, interesting courtroom scenes and a great cast of characters, it’s got it all. This was my 1st John Lescroart novel and I read it out of sequence. Now I must search out the Hunt Club & see for myself what all the hoopla is about Dismas. In any event, the main character Gina Roake was pretty terrific.
December 7, 2014
Okay, this book did get better about halfway through. The things I had issues with dissipated through the last 1/2 for the most part or were toned down enough I really like it more than I thought I would. I kind of had the killer figured out, which I do not often do. This book is a lower 3. I would give it a 4 if the first part of the book did not have all the junk I did not like in it. The 2nd 1/2 moved it from a low 2 and up 1 point.
May 10, 2016
I get so tired of cops jumping to conclusions that someone did it and then spend tons of time trying to make the evidence fit however they need it to and never spend a second to try to find another suspect. That part had me very frustrated in this book. When the cops broke down the door in the middle of the night to make an arrest when the surrender was coming. I am still upset over how cops act sometimes. Anyway, I liked the book other than Juhle acting like a dick.
June 14, 2008
The suspect in this book was a whiny, stupid man who has apparently never watched an episode of any crime drama that's ever been on television. I could have cared less if he went to prison for life.
November 14, 2016
Great book. One of the better ones that I've read of Lescroart (only 4 0r 5). Nice plot with a number misdirections that kept you in suspense as well as some interesting court room situations. Recommended reading if you are a fan of Grisham and Baldacci.
July 13, 2008
I'm half way through and not sure I want to finish it.
June 28, 2012
This book was easy to read, went along smoothly, but lacked the suspense that I enjoy. Surprise ending, but no build up. Don't think I will put him in 'my favorite authors'.
September 25, 2016
Geweldig boek. Het was zo spannend dat ik het boek nauwelijks kon weg zetten. De schrijver heeft mij verrast door op het eind de advocate niet verliefd te laten worden op de"
August 24, 2016
Loved this book!
October 22, 2020
John Lescroart is far above many of the other courtroom trial authors in intelligence, scope, context and story. He makes John Grisham look like a third grader writing a book report with his Big Chief Notepad and giant wooden pencil.
The Suspect wasn't my favorite of Lescroart's work, but still it stands above most of the other novels in this realm. I guess I had set the bar of excellence higher in his case. In each of his stories, there's a lot going on. Grisham, to continue my rant, has a one-lined plot. This happened, and then this happened and then this... Lescroart has a lot going on at once and the actions all tie together. He is also great at capturing emotions of the characters and giving each an individual personality that's not a cliche of the genre. Even the detective, who comes across as a typical detective at points, surprises the reader with a few of his own actions. Each character has flaws and they are shown as well.
Each of Lescroart's novels are large, sweeping tales. I prefer the Dismas Hardy series more, but only because I began reading them first and liked his character and sought him out. Hardy makes a brief appearance in The Suspect, but others in Lescroart's legal world are featured more here.
If you want intelligent, well rounded fiction mysteries, police procedurals and legal drama, you definitely cannot go wrong reading any of Lecroart's stuff.
The Suspect wasn't my favorite of Lescroart's work, but still it stands above most of the other novels in this realm. I guess I had set the bar of excellence higher in his case. In each of his stories, there's a lot going on. Grisham, to continue my rant, has a one-lined plot. This happened, and then this happened and then this... Lescroart has a lot going on at once and the actions all tie together. He is also great at capturing emotions of the characters and giving each an individual personality that's not a cliche of the genre. Even the detective, who comes across as a typical detective at points, surprises the reader with a few of his own actions. Each character has flaws and they are shown as well.
Each of Lescroart's novels are large, sweeping tales. I prefer the Dismas Hardy series more, but only because I began reading them first and liked his character and sought him out. Hardy makes a brief appearance in The Suspect, but others in Lescroart's legal world are featured more here.
If you want intelligent, well rounded fiction mysteries, police procedurals and legal drama, you definitely cannot go wrong reading any of Lecroart's stuff.
September 28, 2023
I swear I must have a different idea of thriller than other people? While I felt this was fairly fast-paced, it didn't have the tension and darkness of what I consider a thriller. The question throughout is did Stuart kill his wife, and (sorry, bit of a spoiler ahead) a majority of it is the inspector on the case focusing on Stuart being the killer and trying to make the pieces of evidence fit that specific narrative even if he has to do gymnastics to make them fit, while completely ignoring every other possibility. That doesn't give the tension or darkness. I very much enjoyed the book and usually read 100 pages at a time because of that, but I just want people to stop calling everything with a little ambiguity a thriller. It's a mystery novel. Nothing wrong with classifying something as a mystery instead of a thriller.
Snaps for Wyatt because he seemed to be the only one with a brain at times. Inspector Juhle was insufferable half the time. I'm glad the author gave Gina the internal monologue about how our legal system isn't there to prove innocence or guilt but to merely settle disputes. Truth and innocence have nothing to do with it. I'm glad he recognized that truth, as many innocent people have paid the price of the faulty system and detectives who are so single-minded that they can't see the truth that's right in front of their eyes.
Overall, an enjoyable reading experience for me.
Snaps for Wyatt because he seemed to be the only one with a brain at times. Inspector Juhle was insufferable half the time. I'm glad the author gave Gina the internal monologue about how our legal system isn't there to prove innocence or guilt but to merely settle disputes. Truth and innocence have nothing to do with it. I'm glad he recognized that truth, as many innocent people have paid the price of the faulty system and detectives who are so single-minded that they can't see the truth that's right in front of their eyes.
Overall, an enjoyable reading experience for me.
October 22, 2019
Truly enjoyed this novel. There is a lot of real estate devoted to developing Gina Roake's character but that's essential for the story the author is telling.
She's taking on her first murder case, the client is irritatingly aloof at his plight and seemingly unmoved by the murder of his wife plus there's intrigue within the healthcare equipment community about a can't-miss hip replacement worth gazillions if approved by the FDA.
The tension between Roake and Inspector Devin Juhle often seems drawn out and we see things pretty much through her eyes. As you read the novel this tidbit gets tedious as you want to scream at the Inspector but...there is resolve at the end that is satisfying to say the least.
Roake and private investigator Wyatt Hunt have great chemistry and it is always nice to have even a cameo appearance from Dismas Hardy in Lescroart novel.
There is plenty of misdirection that allows the reader to ponder possible suspects and scenarios before the surprising end.
Definitely a great read!
She's taking on her first murder case, the client is irritatingly aloof at his plight and seemingly unmoved by the murder of his wife plus there's intrigue within the healthcare equipment community about a can't-miss hip replacement worth gazillions if approved by the FDA.
The tension between Roake and Inspector Devin Juhle often seems drawn out and we see things pretty much through her eyes. As you read the novel this tidbit gets tedious as you want to scream at the Inspector but...there is resolve at the end that is satisfying to say the least.
Roake and private investigator Wyatt Hunt have great chemistry and it is always nice to have even a cameo appearance from Dismas Hardy in Lescroart novel.
There is plenty of misdirection that allows the reader to ponder possible suspects and scenarios before the surprising end.
Definitely a great read!
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