Series: Lescroart, John | Publication Date: January 26, 2004
The master of the legal thriller delivers a brilliantly suspenseful novel of deadly secrets, privileged youth, and uncertain justice...
Dismas Hardy is finally on top: As a managing partner at his thriving, newly reorganized law firm, he's a rainmaker and fix-it guy for clients leery of taking their chances in a courtroom. Now Hardy's up-and-coming associate, Amy Wu, brings him a high-profile case: Andrew Bartlett, the seventeen-year-old son of a prominent San Francisco family, has been arrested for the double slaying of his girlfriend and his English teacher. The D.A. wants to try him as an adult. Determined to get the case into juvenile court and overwhelmed by the mounting evidence against her client, Wu asks Hardy to sit second chair for her in Bartlett's defense.
As the Bartlett case moves swiftly to trial, another series of murders grip the city. An unseen killer seems to be shooting citizens wantonly, and as fear and anxiety build around The Executioner (as he is quickly dubbed in the ensuing media frenzy), Abe Glitsky, the newly promoted deputy chief of the Investigations Bureau, leads the desperate hunt to stop him.
With the city on the verge of panic, Hardy and Glitsky are locked in a race against time-to save a client and to catch a murderer. But nothing is what it seems, and as both men's cases twist and turn to their shocking conclusions, the very foundations of San Francisco's legal system will be shaken to the core.
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!
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 starsHis best yet, February 6, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: The Second Chair: A Novel (Hardcover)
THE SECOND CHAIR is by far Lescroart's best work. While I loved FIRST LAW, THE OATH, and THE HEARING, this one is my all-time favorite. Well-drawn characters, a plot with just the right amount of twists and turns, and an excellent writing style make this one of the most enjoyable reads you'll come across for this genre. Yes, it does take a bit of time to build, but just wait--you won't be disappointed. And why shouldn't Lescroart take his time? He is, after all, miles above your average mystery/thriller writer. You can't go wrong with this one.
Also recommended: THE FIRM by Grisham, McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD, and SPLIT SECOND
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This review is from: The Second Chair: A Novel (Hardcover)
Dismas Hardy is the new managing partner of his reorganized law firm after his former partner was gunned down. A new associate to the firm, Amy Wu, is grieving over the recent loss of her father. She brings the firm a high-profile case in which Andrew Barlett, the seventeen-year-old son of a prominent family is charged with the murder of his pregnant girlfriend and drama coach. Wu tries to keep Andrew in juvenile court where his maximum sentence is eight years as opposed to adult court where it would be life without parole. At first Wu is convinced that Andrew is quilty and pushes him to accept the plea bargain offered by the D.A. in which is admits to his guilt in order to stay in the juvenile system. The problem is he adamantly protests his innocence despite all the evidence against him. With the firm's reputation is on the line, Dismas agrees to sit second chair at the trial.
John Lescroart writes one of the best legal thriller series if not the best. His characters are fully realized, emotionally complex people that grow with each book. If you have never read this series, it is not a bad idea to start from the beginning. It would be worth it because most of the books in the series are excellent.
Lescroart is able to draw on the reader's emotions regarding his characters. I strongly disliked the Wu character in the beginning of the story. She had this boy's life in her hands and she was just trying to ramrod him through the system because she thought he was guilty. She was busy feeling sorry for herself: drinking, picking up men, overall irresponsible behavior. She was just not a very sympathetic character. In the course of the story, you really get to see her evolution. By the end you can understand why she was acting the way she did and even sympathize with her.
Abe Glitsky, another mainstay from the series is also present in a parallel storyline. There is not quite as much interaction between Dismas and Abe this time out, but the storylines do tie together in the end.
John Lescroart fans will enjoy this entry in the series and new readers will become fans.
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This review is from: The Second Chair: A Novel (Hardcover)
In San Francisco, Laura Wright and her drama teacher Mr. Mooney are killed in his apartment. Laura's lover, Andrew Bartlett, the father of her unborn child is arrested two months after the double homicide and charged with special circumstances murder. Amy Wu, an associate in the law firm in which Dismas Hardy is the managing partner, takes the case even though she believes her client is guilty.
With his parents' permission, Amy plea bargains for her seventeen year old client so that he will plead guilty if he's charged as a minor. She explains to Andrew that he will be remanded to a juvenile youth facility for eight years and then would be a free man. Andrew agrees to Amy's suggestion since the evidence against him is so overwhelming, but at the last minute he declares his innocence. Dismas takes a more active role in the case, seeking evidence, interviewing witnesses and acting as THE SECOND CHAIR in Andrew's upcoming hearing.
No doubt about it, Dismas Hardy is the twenty-first century's Perry Mason only more personable since the audience sees his interactions with his employees, friends, wife and children. THE SECOND CHAIR is a great legal thriller with a cast of characters easy to like. The intrinsic workings of the California judicial system especially when it comes to the rights of a juvenile is fascinating to observe. John Lescroart's latest work, THE FIRST CHAIR is definitely heading to the New York Times bestseller list.
Harriet Klausner
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First Sentence:
Only four minutes remained in sixteen-year-old Laura Wright's life as she came out of the bathroom of the small apartment on Beaumont Street in San Francisco. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
adult trial, juvenile system
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
San Francisco, Andrew Bartlett, Allan Boscacci, Hall of Justice, Jason Brandt, Dismas Hardy, Elizabeth Cary, Hal North, Mike Mooney, Judge Johnson, Anna Salarco, Juan Salarco, Laura Wright, Lucas Welding, Twin Peaks, Lou the Greek, Clarence Jackman, Linda North, Wes Farrell, David Freeman, Gina Roake, Marcel Lanier, Perfect Killer, Catherine Bass, Cow Palace
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