Guilt [Mass Market Paperback]

John Lescroart (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 622 pages
• Publisher: Island (December 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 044022506X
• ISBN-13: 978-0440225065
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,819,747 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great legal thriller!, December 14, 2001

By 

Robert Knetsch "Wanna-be theologian" (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guilt (Abe Glitsky) (Mass Market Paperback)

It has been a while since I have been able to sit down and just enjoy some good 'ol legal fiction - nothing heavy, nothing outrageous, just a good story. It was a pleasure to spend long hours reading this book and trying to figure out at first who really was guilty, who really did commit these murders.

The book builds up rather nicely to a somewhat predictable though still suspenseful (can this both be true?) climax that puts the book at a level that often surpasses that of John Grisham types. There is a depth to the characters that makes you root for them and want to keep on reading. I am impressed with Lescroart's ability to present a believable court case - especially since he is not a lawyer.

The actual facts are not entirely believable however. Dooher is so nice, so caring and yet the dark side that eventually comes out is a bit too jolting to seem believable. Perhaps that is the point, to make you think ANYONE could be a murderer. Still, I felt slightly cheated.

This is a good book to curl up with, however, and to want to finish right to the end.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not a who done it..but how and why he done it., May 17, 1999

By 

Mike Bush (Carmel, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guilt (Abe Glitsky) (Mass Market Paperback)

Maybe I should not have read one of your readers reviews of this book before I read it myself, but I thought it might be good. Some your readers deadpaned the book through the first 300 pages. Most people assume who the killer is, but it is not enntirely certain until the last few chapters. I feel that GUILT is dealing with the loyalty of friendships and the trust broken...even by long time friends. Guilt is an excellent adventure into human relationships and how some people will use those relationships for their own selfishnefss. I love any type of courtroom novels, and there were some good ones here, but it was the mystery and well developed characters that kept me reading and turning the pages. This is one of the best "legal novels" written by a non lawyer. This is a must read for any serious legal, thrill reader!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I hate to be the party pooper but..., November 26, 2006

By 

DWD "DWD's Reviews" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Guilt (Mass Market Paperback)

Despite good experience with Lescroart in the past, despite the rave reviews on this site and despite the rave reviews on the back cover and a dozen rave reviews inside the front cover, I found myself only caring about what happened to Abe Glitsky. The slow-moving, plodding plotline only reinforced the fact that I did not care what happened to the Mark Dooher. Did he kill his wife? I don't know - it's mentioned in the first sentence in the plot synopsis on the back cover and 200 pages into the book she's still alive and I'm getting irritated at reading about Dooher's connivings to sleep with one of his young employees.

So, anyway, I read exactly 200 pages of this book. It was not easy. I was forcing myself to continue on, much like I would do with a college textbook. Then I came across the new Tony Hillerman book and I gladly dropped this one into the box of books that I'm dropping off at the Goodwill. Thank goodness I am now "Guilt" free!

I give this one a grade of F.