Reviews from DAVID PITT
in Canada

JANUARY - FEBRUARY  REVIEWS

JOHN LESCROART*

BETRAYAL
JOHN LESCROART
Dutton  February, 2008

Lescroart's nineteenth novel is being billed (by its publisher, that is) as his most ambitious and provocative book. When those words are tossed around, especially in the vicinity of a genre writer, you can usually figure you're in store for clumsy social commentary and a general air of pomposity. (Sorry if that sounds cynical, but there you are.)

BETRAYAL, on the other hand, is genuinely provocative, a thoughtful and intelligent novel that proves, if you had any doubt, that Lescroart is a powerful storyteller.

The story is engaging. Ron Nolan, a private military contractor, has been murdered. The man convicted of the crime, Evan Scholler, is a former soldier with a troubled history (including a life-threatening injury and a traumatic recovery). Evan was convicted on mostly circumstantial evidence -- among other things, he and Nolan both had a personal relationship with the same woman -- but he steadfastly denies being a killer. (Should we believe him, though?)  

When Scholler's lawyer disappears, Dismas Hardy, Lescroart's most engaging creation (he's starred in most of Lescroart's best novels), agrees to take on Scholler's appeal. He and his old pal, detective Abe Glitsky (the author's second most engaging creation), soon discover that, with this case, nothing is as it seems.

I know, I know: it sounds like typical legal-thriller fare. But I didn't tell you this: Lescroart devotes the bulk of the book -- three-quarters of it, give or take -- to relating the facts of the case. You know how in most legal thrillers you get a chapter, maybe two, detailing the case the hero has undertaken to crack? In this book, the case is most of the story, taking us from Scholler and Nolan's first meeting in Iraq, through their friendship, to their mutual (and ultimately disastrous) attraction to the beautiful Tara Wheatley. Lescroart doesn't just give us the details; he gives us the heart of the case, the motivations of the characters, not just the black and white but the many shades of grey in between.

Lescroart recognizes, here, what too many novelists fail to: if we're not invested in the case, if we're not familiar with its finer points, if we don't know the facts of the case as well as the protagonist does, then we're just flippin' the pages without really caring how it all turns out. In BETRAYAL, we really do care, because we've been with Evan Scholler from the very beginning, and we saw what happened to him, and we know what's at stake.

Is this a Dismas Hardy novel, or a novel about the war in Iraq and its psychological consequences? I don't know, and I don't care. Let the artsy-fartsy book reviewers split those hairs. I just want you to know this: Hardy is in the novel, but he's not really the lead; there is a murder mystery, but that's not what the book is really about; and Lescroart has several smart things to say about the war in Iraq , but it's not an anti-war novel.

Oh, and you should know this, too: BETRAYAL is like nothing else Lescroart has written; it's very ambitious, and it's a complete success.

- David Pitt
*PHOTO CREDIT:  RICH MONTGOMERY

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NOVEMBER - DECEMBER  REVIEWS

ANGEL’S SHARE
MIKE RIPLEY
Allison and Busby  pb 11/07
International Publisher’s Marketing Distributors
ISBN:  978-0-749080464

Fitzroy Maclean Angel, the one-time jazz trumpeter, illicit cab driver, and amateur sleuth, is having a tough time adjusting to his new job. He's working as a private detective for Rudgard & Blugden Confidential Investigations, but not out of any desire to make something of himself after all these years of aggressive aimlessness: Roy's ladylove, the pregnant Amy, figured it was about time he got himself an income, and she just happens to be a major shareholder in R & B. So she pulled a few strings, and now, like a ticked-off puppet, Roy 's dancing to a tune he'd rather not be listening to.

Anyway, Roy's first case involves finding a missing person. Well, she's not missing, exactly, it's just that the client, James Ellrington, doesn't know where to find her -- not surprising, since the lady in question is Ellrington's former girlfriend, his first love, and he hasn't seen her in forty-odd years. But now his marriage is over, and he's desperate to find her, because he's convinced they can pick up right where they left off.

It's a bit of a weird case, and Roy is a bit skeptical of Ellrington's motives; but, relying on advice gleaned from his literary mentor, Raymond Chandler, he plunges reluctantly in. But he's distracted by a rather tricky personal matter: his father is planning to get married, to a woman who seems, shall we say, inappropriately young for him. Roy 's dad hasn't told his ex-wife, either -- he's kind of hoping Roy will handle that for him.

Oh, and there's also the little matter of Ossie Oesterlein, a fellow private eye. Ossie's had a bit of trouble with a con artist, and he strikes a deal with Roy: you help me clean up my mess, and I'll help you find Ellrington's long-lost love. So, while he's supposed to be looking for his client's old girlfriend, he's also acting as a muscleman for Oesterlein.

This is the fourteenth Roy Angel mystery; the first, JUST ANOTHER ANGEL, was published nearly twenty years ago. When a series has run this long, is there any point in debating the relative merits of this novel versus the ones that came before it? Ripley hit his stride many books ago, and now it's a matter of finding new cases for Roy to investigate, new complications for him to overcome. Ripley's shaking things up a bit in ANGEL’S SHARE -- Roy's gonna be a daddy, and it looks like he's gonna be a regular working stiff -- but really it's just more of the same, and that is a very good thing, because in this case "more of the same" means more laughs, more offbeat characters, more loopy storylines, and more of good ol' Roy, the world's most reluctant detective.

- David Pitt

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