Customer Reviews

Dead Irish (Dismas Hardy)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Dismas Hardy is an ex-Marine, ex-cop, ex-attorney, ex-Catholic, ex-sharkwalker, ex-husband... Since the death of his 7 month old son, for which he blames himself, he has abandoned his marriage, his career & nearly abandoned all hope--"You could put your hope in anything you wanted, he figured, but to put it in hope itself was just pure foolishness." Now he bartends days at his friend Moses McGuire's bar, plays darts almost obsessively & drinks a few too many Black and Tans and Irish Whiskey's. He's just "skimming over the surface" of life, afraid to test the depths.

But when Moses' brother-in-law is found dead--a young man who Moses' little sister says was a younger version of Hardy before life chewed him up--Hardy ends up investigating whether it was murder or suicide. Gradually, & perhaps inevitably, he begins to care again.

I started one of these books a couple years ago & it didn't grab me, probably because it is a third person private eye novel--a major departure from the rules of the genre. But I found this one for fifty cents & figured I'd give it a shot.

I'm extremely glad that I did.

GRADE: B+

Over that last few years I have read several of the Dismas Hardy books. What really stuck out for me as one of my biggest gripes was that the characters really felt set in stone. I never felt like they were growing from one book to the next. I also felt alot like Lescroart was writing the same story over and over again with slight variations. So in my mind I was viewing Lescroart as a talanted mystery/thriller writer who was trying too hard to write for an imaginary audience whom he felt wanted an exact sort of book from him and that he had become too attached to his characters to alow for them to undergo changes.

Thats why I think I felt that Dead Irish was such a refreshing Lescroart book for one who has basically worked backwards along the series arc. In Dead Irish the characters are just being formed, given substance. Its interesting to see the long standing friendships that would later come to be take shape.

The story itself is also pretty interesting, though nothing earth shattering. What I like about it is that all in all it is a fairly simple plot, no mass killings or huge rampages. Instead this book is about the small things. Dismas' friend is killed or has commited suicide and he takes it upon himself to uncover exactly what occured.

This is one of the best Lescroart books. I would say you should read this if you have not yet done so and have previously read others in the series. However, if you are looking for something earth shattering in this genre I would suggest that you turn instead to Cormac McCarthy's 'No Country for Old Men'.

This was our first exposure to author Lescroart and his ex-cop, ex-everything else, Irish bartender, Dismas Hardy. Indeed, we must wait til nearly the mid-point of the book before we learn the personal tragedy that has caused Hardy to largely drop out of life. Meanwhile he leans on his old cop connections to fish out clues and check out suspects as Hardy helps investigate (at the request of the family) the questionable suicide of Eddie Cochran. For half the some 400 pages, the cops, Hardy, and worst, we readers, tire of the efforts to uncover clues and chase potential murderers. When the action finally heats up during the second half, we figure out long before the professionals do the probable villain; fortunately, a couple more killings finally lead to the real bad guy and things get tidied up near the end.

We feel little incentive based on this novel to pursue the rest of this series, although other reviewers suggest it might be one of the weakest in the set. For our money, existential writing is fine, but probably not in a whodunit when the audience is panting for some sort of gripping action to make the pages turn. Apparently this average to mediocre example of the Hardy set might as well be skipped by all but the author's ardent fans.

Dead Irish is the introduction, published in 1989, to the now popular Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series. Diz is down and out, holding things together by tending bar, drinking, and perfecting his darts game. Ex-cop, ex-lawyer, ex-husband, he was thrown for a loop by the accidental death of his infant son, and decided life wasn't worth playing anymore. The bar owner, Mose, brings a request to Diz to look into the case of his brother-in-law Eddie. His death appears to be suicide, but the family simply cannot accept that. In a "why not" sort of mood, Diz agrees, but without current creds, is forced to work on the periphery, pestering former partner Sgt. Abe Glitsky to keep him apprised of what the cops are thinking. The waters are soon very murky, muddied by a major drug deal, two additional suspicious deaths, and a brutal attack on Eddie's younger brother. It it only due to Dis's dogged persistence that the truth is eventually uncovered.

An obvious freshman effort, Dead Irish lacks the tension necessary for successful mysteries, and is fairly easy to figure out. But it's interesting to learn the back story, a couple of elements fall into place in Diz's life, and the psychological interplay among the various characters is well done.

This review has more to do with the series than with Dead Irish. Working my way through the Dismas Hardy novels. Unlike many current detective writers, Lescroart eschews the charismatic psychotic serial killer and his/her elaborate, shocking crimes - burned, hanged, flayed, dismembered, et al. - and offers rather average folks - cops, secretaries, lawyers, etc. - caught up in difficult and unusual circumstances but trying to deal with the challenges of everyday life - work, family, friends.

His characters' reflections on these challenges are simple, poignant, thoughtful evocations of the issues that we all face, and Lescroart does a superb job of coalescing the vapors, giving voice to our ruminations and fears.

His work reminds me of the writing of James Gould Cozzens who won a Pulitzer Prize and was considered for the Nobel Prize. Writing during the middle decades of the 20th century, Cozzens was attacked by critics for being hopelessly out of date. His heroes are quite ordinary men, living quite ordinary lives and find themselves in the midst of a crisis that tests their moral and ethical beliefs. Like Cozzens' characters, Lescroart's heroes stand near us, offering the opportunity to reflect on our own lives.

The plots have the requisite twists and turns and tensions to keep them moving briskly, but it is the thoughts and feelings of the characters that lift these books well above the general run of detective/thriller/mystery novels. The layers build as the series progresses so stay the course and enjoy the books - it's definitely worth it.

Ok, I don't understand why everyone thinks John Lescroart is a great author. I found this book to be extremely boring and the twists in it almost didn't make sense. It was a real stretch. I didn't think the characters interacted very well at all. This is the first book that I've read of the author. Maybe I should have started at the beginning of the series, but when I read the reviews for it they said that this book explained a lot of the beginnings of his main character, Dis Hardy. I just felt that the action was very stilted and that the author made the police very stupid. Like they couldn't do their jobs so they had to turn to an outsider that had been away from it for over 8 years. I just found the book to be very unbelievable from the get go. I would hope after several murders that are tied together that the police would be a little more interested. Just found it to be unrealistic. I did like the premise of the book and that the author explored the main family in the book but he seemed to forget some characters after introducing them until the end and it was wrapped up in a nice little package. Not sure if I'll try this author again or not. Also, don't think I can recommend this particular book to anyone.

It's always good to read the first book of a series as it lays the groundwork for the characters and their relationships. This book did a very good job of creating the defining the principal characters by making them interesting enough that I want to read more about them. The setting was well done. However, the story had too many red herrings and I found myself disappointed by the ending.

Dismas Hardy is a brooding Irishman who wears the pain of his personal losses like a costume. He is a former marine, policeman, attorney, husband and father and each of these past roles - and their attendant disappointments, pain and loss - play a very big part in his solitary and aloof approach to life. He tends bar at one of his closest friend's, Moses McGuire, neighborhood bar, plays a fairly decent game of darts, and drinks too many Black and Tans. He is a bartender who will listen to your sad tale, provide some bar-side philosophy with a bit of Irish cynicism and take your keys when you have had too much. He is in a slow spiral down until Moses's brother-in-law, Eddie Cochran, turns up dead. The first thinking is suicide but all those who know Eddie are convinced it was murder. Dismas makes it his business to find out.
This is a fast paced novel with many interesting, fully developed characters and enough questions on each page to keep you turning.

Several reviewers have compared this novel unfavourably to later examples of the Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series. But the book is the first of the series, and although it's weaker than later examples, it's a good read, with very sympa characters. And as always, the essence of San Francisco is bottled in some very evocative descriptions. So, fair plot, good characters, excellent setting. Well worth a look, and the later books in the series just get better. Press on.....

This is my second Lescroart novel and so far it's nothing compared to Guilt. I enjoyed some of the characters but the plot was really thin and not really that much of a mystery at all. Just a by the numbers detective story. If you have nothing else to read, you could do worse, but it's really nothing spectacular.