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Book Review of The Motive (Dismas Hardy, Bk 11)

The Motive (Dismas Hardy, Bk 11)
reviewed on + 107 more book reviews


The back cover blurb gushes, "Surpasses anything Grisham ever wrote and bears comparison whth Turow." While it's not that hard to surpass some of Grisham, this book does not measure up to Turow - even the one Turow book I didn't like.

I've read all the Dismas Hardy books, up to and including this one, and they have diminished in quality as the series progresses. The first effort in the series, "Dead Irish", which introduced Dismas Hardy, was excellent, and several of the others, like "The Mercy Rule" were extremely good, but this book really doesn't measure up. The author may have ridden this cast of characters as far as he can.

The author commits a cardinal sin by obliquely referring back to events which took place in one of the earlier offerings ("The First Law", I thinkl) without filling in enough back story to let us know what he is talking about. It has been almost two years since I read that book, which wasn't that memorable and I've forgotten what he's referring to.

I'm also getting weary of the San Francisco locale. The city by the bay was a lovely place to visit, but I don't think I could live there. The author mentions several times how people have to find a parking place, sometimes six blocks from the house, to leave the car overnight. If people are that crammed together and property values are so high nobody can afford a driveway and/or garage, that's not for me. Guess I'll stay in Teaxs where there is room to have both a driveway and a garage, even if I can't get a glimpse of the Goldan Gate Bridge through the fog.

The author spends a lot of time on "family values"; both main male characters are working on their second wives and spend a lot of time on tender moments and relations with offspring. Abe Glitsky, well into his fifties, is has started a whole second family to supplement his first family which is colege age. I'm surprised anyone has time to solve a crime.

When I find an author I like, I usually buy everything I can find that he/she has written, then read the books in order. As a result, I still have five or six Lescroart's books to read, but doubt that I'll buy any more.