Table of Contents
The first novel in the Dismas Hardy seriesby theNew York Timesbestselling author ofThe Oath, The First Law,andThe Second Chair.
In his new life as a bartender at the Little Shamrock, Dismas Hardy is just hoping for a little peace. Hes left both the police force and his law career behind. Unfortunately its not as easy to leave behind the memory of a shattering personal lossbut for the time being, he can always take the edge off with a stiff drink and a round of darts.
But when the news of Eddie Cochrans death reaches him, Hardy is propelled back into all the things he was trying to escapeand forced to untangle a web of old secrets and raw passions, for the sake of Eddies pregnant widow, Frannie, and for the others whose lives may still be at risk....
Possessed of a singular writers instinct, Lescroart... produces a full-bodied, substantive, and stylistic effort of the first order.
Library Journal
Full of the things I like.... Lescroarts a pro.
Jonathan Kellerman
A beautifully written San Francisco murder story with perfect-pitch dialogue.
Playboy
The killer proves to be as fascinating a personality as Hardy himself.
Publishers Weekly
With John Lescroarts polished writing, Dead Irish becomes more than a mystery novel with a bartender as detective. With razored precision, characters stand out, flawed and human.... Chilling in its intensity, this is an ingenious tale of many different kinds of people.
Pasadena Star-News
Praise for the Novels of John Lescroart
The Second Chair
Lescroart gives his ever-growing readership another spellbinder to savor.
Library Journal
Lescroart plays out clues with the patience and cunning of a master fly fisherman.
The Orlando Sentinel
Entertaining.
Entertainment Weekly
A sociological take on the justice systemevery motive is carefully nuanced, every player rooted in social reality.
Kirkus Reviews
Under Lescroarts assured hand, this perfectly paced tale of legal procedure and big-city politics keeps us turning pages, even when its time to turn in at night.
Booklist
The First Law
With his latest, Lescroart again lands in the top tier of crime fiction.
Publishers Weekly
The Oath
APeoplePage-Turner
TERRIFIC.
People
The Hearing
A SPINE-TINGLING LEGAL THRILLER.
Larry King, USA Today
EXCELLENT STUFF.
San Jose Mercury News
Nothing but the Truth
RIVETING.
Chicago Tribune
A rousing courtroom showdown.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The Mercy Rule
WELL-WRITTEN, WELL-PLOTTED, WELL-DONE.
Nelson DeMille
Readers of The 13th Juror will already be off reading this book, not this review. Join them.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Guilt
BEGIN GUILT OVER A WEEKEND.... If you start during the workweek, you will be up very, very late, and your pleasure will be tainted with, well, guilt.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
A well-paced legal thriller... one of the best in this flourishing genre to come along in a while.
The Washington Post Book World
A Certain Justice
A West Coast take on The Bonfire of the Vanities... richly satisfying.
Kirkus Reviews
A gifted writer with a distinctive voice. I read him with great pleasure.
Richard North Patterson
The 13th Juror
FAST-PACED... sustains interest to the very end.
The Wall Street Journal
Hard Evidence
ENGROSSING... compulsively readable, a dense and involving saga of big-city crime and punishment.
San Francisco Chronicle
Also by John Lescroart
Betrayal
The Suspect
The Hunt Club
The Motive
The Second Chair
The First Law
The Oath
The Hearing
Nothing but the Truth
The Mercy Rule
Guilt
A Certain Justice
The 13th Juror
Hard Evidence
The Vig
Rasputins Revenge
Son of Holmes
Sunburn
I would like to thank Bob and Barbara Sawyer, Elaine Jennings, and Holt Satterfield for help in preparing the manuscript; Drs. Gregory Gorman and Chris Landon; Dalila Corral; Don Matheson for a few bons mots, and Patti OBrien for two big words.
Most especially, I would like to thank Al Giannini of the San Francisco District Attorneys office, a great friend as well as a resource for technical and procedural matters, without whom this book truly could not have been written.
Any technical errors are the authors.
To my mother,
Loretta Therese Gregory Lescroart,
and, again, to Lisa,
with love
I have certainly known more men destroyed by the desire to have a wife and child and keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
FROM HIS AISLE SEAT, Dismas Hardy had a clear view of the stewardess as her feet lifted from the floor. She immediately let go of the traythe one that held Hardys Cokealthough strangely it didnt drop, but hung there in the air, floating, the liquid coming out of the glass like a stain spreading in a blotter.
The man next to him grabbed Hardys elbow and said, Were dead.
Hardy, as though from a distance, noted the mans hand on his arm. He found it difficult to take his eyes from the floating stewardess. Then, as suddenly as shed lifted, the stewardess crashed back to the floor with the tray and the drink.
Two or three people were screaming.
Hardy was the first one to get his seat belt off. In a second, he was kneeling over the stewardess, who appeared to be unhurt, though badly shaken, crying. She held him, muscles spasming in fear or relief, gasping for breaths between sobs.
It was the first time Hardyd had a womans arms around him in four and a half years. And that time had been just the once, with Frannie ne McGuire now Cochran, after a New Years Eve party.
The pilot was explaining theyd dropped three thousand feet, something about wind shears and backwashes of 747s. Hardy loosened the womans hold on him. Youre all right, he said gently. Were all okay. He looked around the plane, at the ashen faces, the grotesque smiles, the tears. His own reaction, he figured, would come a little later.
In fifteen minutes they were at the gate in San Francisco. Hardy cleared customs, speaking to no one, and went to the Tiki Bar, where he ordered a black and tanideally a mixture of Guinness Stout and Bass Ale. This one wasnt ideal.
Halfway through the first one, he felt his legs go, and he grinned at himself in the bars mirror. Next his hands started shaking and he put them on his lap, waiting for the reaction to pass. Okay, it was safe. He was on the ground and could think about it now.
