Series: Abe Glitsky | Publication Date: January 3, 2012
When the angry white mob poured out of the bar on San Francisco's Geary Street and surrounded an innocent black man, Kevin Shea was the only one who tried to stop them. He failed, and now, thanks to a deceptive news photo taken during the melee, he is wanted for the murder himself-and the real culprits have threatened his life if he says a word.
As riots rage and politicians posture, Lieutenant Abe Glitsky finds himself under pressure to bring Shea in at all costs. And as respect for the law crumbles-even among those sworn to uphold it-true justice is the only thing that can prevent the death of another innocent man.
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Politics and justice mix like oil and water after racial tensions erupt into violence in this taut and engrossing San Francisco-set thriller. Lescroart (The 13th Juror) wastes no time setting up his story. In the first few, galvanizing pages, an African American lawyer is lynched by a mob of drunk Irish Americans incensed at the murder of one of their friends by a black career criminal. Alone in trying to save the doomed lawyer is Keven Shea, a 28-year-old grad student. But when a photograph showing him trying to hand the lawyer a knife to cut loose the noose is interpreted as an attempted stabbing, Shea, who goes on the lam, becomes the target of a citywide manhunt. He also becomes San Francisco's chief symbol of racial unrest as politicians ranging from the city's district attorney to a U.S. senator pursue their personal interest in declaring him guilty; only Lt. Abe Glitsky, head of the city's homicide detail, seems to be looking at the case objectively. Meanwhile, Shea turns for help to his girlfriend and, in one of the author's few nods toward cliche, to a down-and-out lawyer pal. Throughout, Lescroart keeps a sharp eye on both the big picture and the individual views of a multitude of well-drawn characters. By showing the political maneuvering that can accompany an outbreak of violence, he offers an unusually thoughtful, exciting thriller that evinces insight into incidents and attitudes that seem all too real. 125,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club featured alternates; author tour. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Fans of Lescroart will line up for his newest legal thriller, which takes place over a few stress-filled summer days in San Francisco. When a drug-related murder results in strained race relations in the city, events escalate until a drunken mob lynches a young black attorney. A young white man, Kevin Shea, tries with all his body and soul to stop the crime from happening, but his efforts are wasted, and an irresponsible photographer snaps a shot of Kevin that gets misinterpreted by everyone. The city goes nuts--riots, fires, and a $200,000 reward is posted for Kevin's apprehension. But Kevin, now on the run with his spunky girlfriend, insists on making his role in the event clear and his innocence known. He calls an old friend, attorney Wes Farrell, to help. Once cynical and distrustful of the legal system, Wes regains faith in the law while fighting for Kevin. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Abe Glitzky, head of homicide, calmly gathers evidence, but he gets sidetracked when his old flame, now a U.S. senator, shows up to put her own "spin" on the drama destroying the city. With not one, two, or three, but four major homicides combining into one political and legal nightmare for SF, this makes a good thriller. Kathy Broderick--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
John Lescroart (pronounced "less-kwah") is a big believer in hard work and single-minded dedication, although he'll acknowledge that a little luck never hurts. Now a New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into 16 languages in more than 75 countries, John wrote his first novel in college and the second one a year after he graduated from Cal Berkeley in 1970
The only hitch was that he didn't even try to publish either of these books until fourteen years later, when finally, at his wife Lisa's urging, he submitted Son of Holmes to New York publishers--and got two offers, one in hardcover, within six weeks!
But about six years before that first hardcover publication, John's ambition to become a working novelist began to take shape. At that time, as Johnny Capo of Johnny Capo and His Real Good Band, he'd been performing his own songs for several years at clubs and saloons in the San Francisco Bay Area. On his 30th birthday, figuring that if he hadn't made it in music by then, he never would, he retired from the music business.
He'd been writing all along, and didn't stop now, although his emphasis changed from music first, prose second, to the other way around. Within two months of his last musical gig, he finished a novel, Sunburn that drew on his experiences in Spain. Since John didn't know anyone in the publishing world, he sent the manuscript to his old high school English teacher, who was not enthusiastic. Fortunately, the teacher left the pages on his bedside table, and his wife picked them up and read them. She loved the book and submitted it in John's name to The Joseph Henry Jackson Award, given yearly by the San Francisco Foundation for Best Novel by a California author. Much to John's astonishment, SUNBURN beat out 280 other entrants, including Interview With A Vampire, for the prize.
Though Sunburn wasn't to be published for another four years, and then only in paperback, the award changed John's approach to writing. He started to think he might make a living as an author, something he'd never previously believed possible for a "regular guy with no connections." He started paying for his writing habit by working a succession of "day jobs"--everything from a computer programmer with the telephone company, to Ad Director of Guitar Player Magazine, to moving man, house painter, bartender (at the real Little Shamrock bar in San Francisco), legal secretary, fundraising executive, and management consultant writing briefs on coal transportation for the Interstate Commerce Commission!!
John moved to Los Angeles and in the next three years finished three long novels, the last of them featuring a private investigator who shared the name Dismas Hardy (and very little else) with the man who would become John's well-known attorney/hero. Since he'd gotten Sunburn published without using a literary agent (an old friend had shown it to a secretary at Pinnacle Books in Los Angeles, who bought it), John went on submitting his work to New York over the transom, receiving many kind rejection letters, but no offers. Finally he realized that even if he wasn't fated to become a commercially successful author, he wanted to be involved in books and literature. So he enrolled in the Masters Program in Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
It was not to be.
While John and his wife, Lisa Sawyer, were preparing that summer to move to New England, he was paying bills by typing technical papers on coal transportation for a consulting firm. Asked by the boss what he thought of the paper, John commented that the argument it made wasn't very compelling and that it wasn't very well-written. His boss challenged him: could he do it any better? In a week, John re-wrote the 400-page draft, which went on to win before the ICC. This led to a "day job" offer that John couldn't refuse. Graduate school fell by the wayside.
But after a year and a half, even a lucrative day job had become a burden. Nothing would do for John by now but to write, but he had little time for writing with his high-paying, career-oriented job. Lisa suggested taking a look at some of the old manuscripts and submitting them--she remembered reading and liking Son of Holmes. How about that one? There was one 14-year-old yellowed and brittle copy of the manuscript left in the world--in the basement of their best man, Don Matheson's, apartment. Six weeks later, John had his first hardcover book deal.
Over the next seven years, back in Los Angeles again, John and Lisa were finally ready to start their family. During this time, John wrote several screenplays and published three more books while he held down a job as a word processing supervisor at a downtown law firm. He rose each day at 5:30 and went to a room they'd built in their garage, where he wrote four pages of his latest in two hours. Then he worked his nine-to-five, ate a bag lunch, and stayed downtown, typing briefs and pleadings at various other law firms until 10:00 or 11:00 at night.
Finally he was publishing, but he wasn't making a living. And then in 1989, at the age of forty-one, he took a break to go body-surfing at Seal Beach. The next day, he lay in a Pasadena hospital. From the contaminated sea water where he'd been surfing, he'd contracted spinal meningitis. Doctors gave him two hours to live.
John now looks back on his 11-day battle with death as the turning point in his career. He quit the last of his day jobs to move back to Northern California and to write full-time, with intense focus and a renewed dedication. The resulting books, richer in terms of theme and story, found a devoted readership and propelled him into the elite circle of bestselling authors--only twenty years to overnight success!
The first quarter of the book is excellent, the last quarter pretty good. The other half is where I found myself skimming the pages for relevant and interesting material but didn't find much. Perhaps I expected too much after this good start. Social issues underlying the story are relevant and well presented in my view. Read it, just get over the rather boring part without quitting.
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The innocent man wrongly accused: it's a story idea strong enough that Alfred Hitchcock made many of his movies based on it. In John Lescroart's A Certain Justice, we get a different take on this theme; although this is well-traveled ground, Lescroart is creative enough to add a couple new things and make an entertaining page-turner.
In San Francisco, after a white man is brutally killed during a carjacking, a black man is arrested. Although it is almost certain he is the killer, he is released for lack of conclusive evidence. During a wake for the CPA, the anger at the suspect's release, fueled by plenty of alcohol, creates a mob mentality that turns on an innocent black man. The leaders of the mob attempt to lynch him.
Kevin Shea tries to intervene, getting out his pocket knife and trying to free the man from the rope around his neck. He fails, the man dies, and an unfortunately timed photo makes him look like a killer. The nature of the hate crime sparks riots and soon Shea is a wanted man. While Lieutenant Abe Glitzky tries to investigate - and has his doubts about Shea's guilt - many others have already tarred him as a brutal killer. Certain politicians - including a U.S. Senator and the District Attorney - have spoken so certainly of Shea's guilt that they will not allow the possibility of his innocence: to do so could injure their own reputations and careers.
At times a crime novel, at times a political one, this story generally succeeds well, although I think occasionally some of the characters are a bit over-the-top. If Lescroart has a statement to make, it is a condemnation of people in responsibility who create or promote agitation for their own personal gains. But, any political statements are actually secondary; the main purpose of this novel is to entertain, and Lescroart has put together a good enough story to merit a high four stars. As a thriller, this is a success.
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First Sentence:
At about eight-ten on an unusually hot and sultry evening a couple of weeks before the Fourth of July, Michael Mullen, a thirty-nine-year-old white accountant with a wife and three children all under eight, stopped his new black Honda Prelude at the corner of 19th and Dolores in the outer Noe Valley District of San Francisco. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
homicide detail, new district attorney, increased reward
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Kevin Shea, San Francisco, Chris Locke, Arthur Wade, Wes Farrell, Loretta Wager, Jerohm Reese, Alan Reston, Philip Mohandas, Elaine Wager, Hall of Justice, City Hall, Hunter's Point, Ridley Banks, Art Drysdale, Lieutenant Glitsky, Carl Griffin, Jamie O'Toole, Pacific Moon, Mike Mullen, Senator Wager, Abe Glitsky, National Guard, Chief Rigby, Special Agent Simms
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