Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Six years after an impromptu conspiracy locked San Francisco lawyer Dismas Hardy and several of his best buds into a coverup (A Plague of Secrets, 2009), the whole shooting match is threatened when one of the conspirators, Hardy's brother-in-law, Moses McGuire, is arrested for murder. Rick Jessup, chief of staff to Liam Goodman of the Board of Supervisors, is quite the ladies' man, or at least he thinks so. When he visits the massage parlors run by Goodman's regular contributor Jon Lo, he has enough confidence to leave without paying, sometimes after beating the young women who've been keeping him company. The morning after he sleeps with Moses' daughter Brittany, he obtusely teases her about her sexual experience, and after she walks out, he's so unwilling to take no for an answer that their next encounter ends with her in the emergency room. So Moses takes it on himself to beat up Jessup and threaten him with worse. When someone kills Jessup two months later, police chief Vi Lapeer, under pressure from Goodman to make an arrest, does an end run around District Attorney Wes Farrell and homicide chief Lt. Abe Glitsky, going directly to two homicide inspectors and a sympathetic judge to sew up the arrest. It's all politically motivated, just as you'd expect from Lescroart (The Hunter, 2012, etc.). But Hardy's defense of Moses, his partner in the Little Shamrock Bar, is just as politically implicated, since he and Glitsky and Hardy's law partner, Gina Roake, all share a compelling personal reason to keep Moses from going back to the bottle or unburdening himself to the cops. A New York cop, placed in the witness protection program so that he can testify against the guys who hired him as a killer, puts just a little more spin on what's already a dizzyingly complex case. Lots of great scenes shoehorned into a story that seems uncertain how to mix its social commentary and courtroom drama with the regulars' continuing soap opera.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

It's been a while since pragmatic defense attorney Diz Hardy has been center stage in a Lescroart thriller, but he's finally back, along with his best friend, San Francisco cop Abe Glitsky. Memories of the so-called Dockside Massacre (The First Law, 2002) remain fresh, however, even six years after the fact, and when a reporter starts digging into the circumstances of the unsolved case, Diz, Abe, and, especially, volatile Moses McGuire, Diz's brother-in-law, get a tad nervous. Moses, the weak link in the information chain, wants to tell all, but the others vote no. Then Moses' beautiful 23-year-old daughter is raped, the rapist is murdered, and Moses emerges as the prime suspect. Did he do it? Just as troubling is whether, under pressure of prosecution, he'll tell what happened on the pier that night. Courtoom dynamics are as well done as ever, but this isn't as strongly plotted as usual, and although the circumstances of the massacre eventually become clear, readers unfamiliar with First Law could be lost at first. Fans of the series, though, will be thrilled to have Diz back. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lescroart has sold 20 million copies of his previous 23 novels. Numbers to die for.--Zvirin, Stephanie Copyright 2010 Booklist

Publishers Weekly
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In bestseller Lescroart's engrossing 17th legal thriller featuring San Francisco DA Dismas Hardy (after 2010's Damage), Hardy's niece, Brittany McGuire, a recent college grad, has the misfortune to date paralegal Rick Jessup. The despicable Jessup rapes her one night after she breaks off their relationship. When Jessup is found bludgeoned to death in his apartment the next day, all the evidence points to Brittany's alcoholic father, Moses McGuire. The prosecution appears to have the case handed to them on a platter after McGuire drunkenly admits that Jessup deserved his fate, and Hardy must suppress his own doubts as he assumes McGuire's defense. Hardy races against the clock to find out whether Jessup's shady dealings with San Francisco politicians may lead to another vigilante with a secret of his own. Some necessary backstory weighs down the momentum at first, but the pace picks up after several 11th-hour revelations. Author tour. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal
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Fans of Dismas Hardy will welcome this 14th outing in Lescroart's legal series. Hardy first appeared in 1989's Dead Irish as a 38-year-old, between careers and between marriages. Now, at 60, he's a respected, successful San Francisco attorney. With their children grown, he and wife Frannie have begun to explore their new life as empty-nesters. But before Hardy even has time to settle into his new fitness regimen, a disturbing case presents itself when Frannie's brother, Moses McGuire, is charged with murder. The victim is Rick Jessup, a disreputable political aide who at one time had unsuccessfully pursued McGuire's beautiful daughter, Brittany. Not only must Hardy and his old pal police detective Abe Glitsky sift through the conflicting evidence that surfaces about Jessup, but they're forced to deal with recovering alcoholic McGuire's fall from the wagon, which threatens to reveal the long-kept secret that could end the careers of Dismas and Abe. Verdict Like wine, both Lescroart and Hardy have improved with age. Don't let readers miss this one. [See Prepub Alert, 11/12/12.]-Nancy McNicol, Hamden P.L., CT (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.