The Hunt Club (Wyatt Hunt) (Paperback)

by John Lescroart (Author) "From the outside, the large four-story San Francisco apartment building on Twenty-second Avenue near Balboa in the Richmond District was well kept up, but I..." (more)
Key Phrases: homicide detail, homicide inspector, new caves, Carol Manion, Andrea Parisi, Staci Rosalier (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The heroes of Lescroart's popular Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series (The Second Chair; etc.) have reached the point where age and professional success keep them from the gritty street-level investigations that made their adventures so good. While promising that he hasn't abandoned the duo, Lescroart keeps the action high by inaugurating a new San Francisco series, starring private investigator Wyatt Hunt and homicide detective Devin Juhle. Longtime Lescroart fans can relax: these pals are at least as interesting and enterprising as Hardy/Glitsky. Hunt's eccentric pack of friends and associates (aka the loose organization known as the Hunt Club) are investigating the murder of a federal judge and his young girlfriend. What would normally be a job for the police becomes personal after Hunt's love interest, who has connections to the judge, goes missing. Both Hunt and Juhle have appropriately troubled pasts: Hunt was forced out of a career as a child protective services officer, and Juhle is trying to live down a shoot-out that killed his last partner. As a PI, Hunt is free to detect in unorthodox and entertaining ways, while Juhle brings to bear the technical and logistic resources of official law enforcement. Most readers will agree that it's a great combination, both on the job and on the page. (On sale Jan. 24)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Lescroart, the author of the New York Times best-selling series starring Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky, introduces a new series character here. Wyatt Hunt is an embittered ex-caseworker in San Francisco, dismissed from Child Protective Services in a dispute with his boss. He is now at the first stages of recovering from this blow, which threatens not his love of salary or sense of self but his mission to save the most vulnerable castoffs in the city. It's pretty standard in mysteries, and even cliched, to have somebody wrongly fired (usually from the police) sink into seclusion or the bottle and then move into private-eye work as a way back to life. This premise gives the character a depth of expertise to draw on and, theoretically, a sufficiently cynical outlook on life. Lescroart draws on this tradition by having his hero drawn out of his seclusion by a homicide inspector friend asking him to look into a murder. The murder is pretty juicy--a federal judge and his mistress are both found dead in his home. One of the suspects is a lawyer/TV crime commentator whom Hunt has a crush on and who suddenly disappears. Hunt works with a loose group of friends, all with different backgrounds and expertise, to solve the judge's murder and the lawyer's disappearance. Hunt is the narrator, much given to long-winded descriptions of his thought processes. This works great with Spenser, but it's boring with Hunt, who hasn't emerged enough from his self-pity to be a credible sleuth, although his child-services background gives him the ability to read motives in surprisingly insightful ways. Enjoyable plot but unconvincing detective. Lescroart fans will be interested, even so. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Signet (December 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451220102
• ISBN-13: 978-0451220103
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #162,458 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #35 in

  Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( L ) > Lescroart, John

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No Sequel Is Required, February 4, 2006

By	John R. Linnell (New Gloucester, ME United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Hunt Club: A Novel (Hardcover)

I am and have been a huge John Lescroart fan. The Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series has been a joy to read and it was with some curiosity that I awaited the release of The Hunt Club. This was to be a departure from the past and I was hoping it would measure up.

Dismas Hardy makes a few cameo appearances in this novel, but this story as about a new character, Wyatt Hunt, PI. Still set in San Francisco, Hunt becomes involved in the murder of a federal judge and his mistress and the disappearance of a tv personality. The start of the novel is promising and it is not long before you find yourself immersed in the intrigue however, for far too long in my judgement, the story is allowed to meander without apparent purpose until as the end comes into sight, Lescroart finds his feet again and puts some very interesting finishing touches to it.

To my mind this is a novel that does not beg for or even promise a sequel. It can easily be a stand alone book and if there are no further adventures of Wyatt Hunt, that will be alright with me. Hopefully, if Mr. Hunt is to have some longevity in future novels, the author will find something about him to make him relevant to those of us who admire his writing.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Detective Story/Police Procedural with Insights Into the Human Heart, March 9, 2006

By	Tucker Andersen (Wall Street) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Hunt Club: A Novel (Hardcover)

Many John Lescroat fans will undoubtedly be disappointed that this story includes only a few exceedingly brief (although meaningful) appearances by Dismas Hardy and only a passing reference to Abe Glitsky, the two friends who have provided so many hours of enjoyment to readers who enjoy both legal thrillers and police procedurals. Nevertheless, THE HUNT CLUB does remain true to several of the elements which have made Lescroart one of my favorite authors: wonderful character development, intricate plotting, attention to detail (perhaps overly so in this case), which as usual are combined with sufficient action and suspense to maintain the reader's interest. To provide a bridge for readers of his earlier works and to increase their background understanding of this story, there are two crossover characters as well. Amy Wu plays a crucial role before the story is completed and Diz' partner Wes Farrell appears several times as well. And as usual, the city of San Francisco itself provides not only the geographic backdrop for the story but a political dimension to the plot as well.

The first section of this book is entitled "That was then", and consists of four chapters which provide both a brief introduction and also some historical background regarding the two characters who will play the central roles in any continuing series originates from this novel. The first is Wyatt Hunt, whose varied experiences have led him to his current occupation as a private investigator and head of the firm which bears his name. The second is San Francisco Homicide Inspector Devin Juhle, Wyatt's best friend and baseball buddy during their teenage years. (Wyatt had unexpectedly reconnected with Devin while investigating a potential case of child abuse during his previous employment by Child Protective Services Department.) As Chapter Five informs the reader with the heading, "This is now"; the story then abruptly transitions to the present as Devin Juhle and his partner Gumqui Shui are summoned to the murder scene of federal Judge George Palmer and his mistress (and mystery woman) Staci Rosalier.

Soon thereafter, Andrea Parisi, a local lawyer who has currently become a media celebrity as a commentator on Trial TV also becomes a central character in the plot; unsurprisingly, since in Wyatt's words she is "beautiful, smart, fun and nice", he finds himself increasing at odds with his friend Dev as Andrea together with her law firm's powerful client increasingly becomes a prime focus of the police investigation. When Andrea suddenly disappears without a trace, the interests of the two friends collide. Dev wants to solve the murders and follow established police procedure to protect the evidence in his case from court challenge; Wyatt is convinced of Andrea's innocence and simply wants to maximize any chance that there may be of finding Andrea alive without much concern for such legal niceties as the rules of evidence and the necessity for establishing probable cause in order to get a search warrant.

Thee are so many elements to the plot of this story that any detailed discussion would make this review both much too lengthy and also unavoidably lead to the introduction spoilers. For example, for some time the police are baffled by the fact that Staci Rosalier's background seems to be a complete mystery - she has few friends and despite the publicity associated with the case no family members come forward to identify her. Another element which complicates the plot is some possible involvement of the CCPOA (prison guard's union) in the murder. Dev and his partner Shiu learn that Judge Palmer's investigation of the union had caused its leaders and lawyers (the firm where Andrea worked) to become very worried about his threat to recommend legal action against the union. (The facts unearthed by the author's detailed research with regard to this aspect of the story are very interesting and are illustrative of why I find his work so enjoyable.)

There is clearly a very important legal backdrop to this story, which involves several cleverly interwoven elements which are central to the plot. The story also provides a fair amount of legal insight, particularly an excellent discussion of the granting of search warrants based on probable cause. Nevertheless, readers primarily interested in legal thrillers (e.g. several of the author's previous works) will probably be disappointed, this book has no courtroom scenes of the type which often figure prominently in the Hardy/Glitsky series. But it does feature the same type of increasing tension and crescendoing climaxes characteristic of that series and then the intensely personal finale (often bittersweet) which follows.

Of course, the reader can only speculate on the reasons why Lescroart has followed in the recent path two other writers with popular series protagonists who have created new series which have also achieved best seller status, viz Robert Parker (who now authors the Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall series in addition to the immensely popular Spenser books) and James Patterson (who now alternates The Women's Murder Club with his Alex Cross novels). But whatever those reasons, this nascent series has the potential to provide additional enjoyment to his readers. However, given the much greater depth of his character development and much greater complexity of his plotting and depth of his narratives, his attention to Wyatt and Dev in future novels may be at the expense of his fans further enjoyment of the Abe and Diz saga, a tradeoff which I hope does not occur. My hope would be that in some manner the two series somehow intersect if not merge and that all these marvelous characters get a chance to interact.


While I tremendously enjoyed the character development in this story, the reason for the reduction in my rating to four stars is that I felt that the details involved in the plot and the actions of some of the characters became extremely implausible at times. In addition, on a few occasions the degree of detail exceeded what was necessary to provide realism. Nevertheless, while as I have indicated this book is nominally a police procedural/detective story, the last few superb pages make it clear that it is really the Wyatt Hunt story with Devin Juhle as the strong supporting actor in Wyatt's drama. The comments and thoughts about love and life contained in various succinct passages throughout this book were extremely insightful and at times quite moving. And thus the title, THE HUNT CLUB is actually a wonderful double entendre, which encompasses both Wyatt's firm (including his employees Tamara and Mickey who in a wonderful touch both appear as children in the first chapter of the book) and also his group of friends who provide crucial support at a critical time in his life. Thus, my fond hope is that this book will provide the springboard for as successful a set of stories as began with THE FIRST LAW (review 2/9/2003), which while only four stars was deeply moving and provided the essential background for Lescroart's two most recent five star efforts THE SECOND CHAIR (review 4/22/2004) and THE MOTIVE (review 2/1/2005). In summary, this is a worthwhile read, especially if you want a standalone thriller heavy on plot and character development and much more complex and requiring more reader involvement than many of the beach or airline flight casual reads that comprise pop fiction currently. And the unexpected twists at the end will certainly leave you on a high note and ready for the next development in Wyatt Hunt's life.

Tucker Andersen

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Beware, February 6, 2007

By	El Rayo (Southern California) - See all my reviews

BEWARE, THIS BOOK MAY BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH, you may die of boredom. A plausable indroduction, but after that totally downhill. Way too may characters and way too many subplots for the average reader with a really boring murder mystery to begin with. Avoid this book at all costs. 76 per cent through, I put it in the trash.