Rating: 
Summary: Great Mystery
Review: Keeps you turning the pages, I had to keep taking this away from my wife as I read it. She kept trying to snatch it from me each time I set it down. This is a nicely woven tale that keeps you guessing until the end. I like his writing style and plan to read more of his books.
Rating: 
Summary: Just a Maybe
Review: Lescroart's plots are ingenious and well researched, but his choice of words reminds me of B-novel vocabulary. It's part of the tough-guy routine, I guess. For instance, look at these examples: "They didn't talk about it--they were guys after
all--." "After the macho need to demonstrate their awesome strength..."And his sentences are so full of slang that one wonders if he has a good vocabulary. If some of his sentences were submitted in a creative writing class, the writer would be told to try again....or give up. Della
Rating: 
Summary: New Favorite Author
Review: Of the many books I have read this was definetly a good one. John Lescroart has joined my list of favorite authors. In this book, Glistky and Hardy return when they find out a corporate CEO has been killed. But why? The story develops when the autopsy reveals overdose of Potassium and besides that other patients have been dying quite too often. The deals with the problems that big companies deal with in regards to costs, hmo, and everything. The surprises come throughtout the whole book, and we don't really find out who killed the CEO and why until the very end of the of the book. Great book!!
Rating:
Summary: New Favorite Author
Review: Of the many books I have read this was definetly a good one. John Lescroart has joined my list of favorite authors. In this book, Glistky and Hardy return when they find out a corporate CEO has been killed. But why? The story develops when the autopsy reveals overdose of Potassium and besides that other patients have been dying quite too often. The deals with the problems that big companies deal with in regards to costs, hmo, and everything. The surprises come throughtout the whole book, and we don't really find out who killed the CEO and why until the very end of the of the book. Great book!!
Rating:
Summary: Good start, then becomes a routine thriller
Review: Read John Lescroat's latest thriller, THE OATH . . . the story
about a series of suspicious deaths at a San Francisco HMO
starts off with a bang, then goes somewhat downhill after that . . . there were too many characters and subplots--at least to my liking . . . I did enjoy revisiting "old friends" from previous and better books by the author; i.e., lawyer Dismas Hardy and his best friend, homicide cop Abe Glitsky . . . but I found that it was too simple to
figure out the real culprit . . . only the ending, which dealt with what happened to Glittsky, held my attention.
Rating:
Summary: A Writer's writer!
Review: Several years ago I stumbled across one of Lescroart's early works. It was great -- make that terrific -- and I promptly searched Amazon for more by his pen, then ordered and enjoyed every one of them. Dismas and his erstwhile cop pal, Abe Glitsky, came to be as familiar to me as Batman and Robin were to a youthful, comic-book addicted me.
My hobby of writing short fiction for an on-line writers' club has whetted an appetite for beautifully crafted novels, stories that leave you hanging right up to the last page. Nobody does it better than John Lescroart.
Now if I only knew how to correctly pronounce his name.
Rating:
Summary: THE OATH
Review: T he American health system is placed under the spotlight here.
H ealthcare provider CEO Tim Markham is the victim of a hit and run accident.
E mergency services in intensive care are unable to save his life. O nly then does a series of events lead to the realization that
A ll is not as it seems in the intensive care unit in which he was treated.
T his is a vast story of intrigue involving large companies and
H ow their bottom line affects decisions with little regard to life.
Rating:
Summary: A winner from Lescroart!
Review: The head of San Fransisco's largest HMO dies under suspicious circumstances in his own hospital. The prime suspect has hired attorney Dismas Hardy to represent him - placing Hardy at odds with his good friend, homicide lieutenant Abe Glitzky, and taxing Hardy's marriage as well. The investigation points to a broader pattern of corruption and murder as Hardy joins forces with the authorities to attempt to clear his client's name. Sounds familiar, but that's OK - part of the enjoyment of reading mystery/thriller series is the comfort of the familiar and getting caught up-to-date on the latest developments in the characters' lives. Compared to the previous book in the series (The Hearing), The Oath features a better plot and crisper writing that avoids getting bogged down in the relationships among the many characters. While not exactly unpredictable, there are a few good twists at the end.
Rating:
Summary: The Love of Money is The Root of All Evil
Review: THE OATH By John Lescroart To the readers who know his work this may be as good as a writer gets. For John Lescroart, that is five stars and superior. His family of characters led by Dismas Hardy, the very human attorney, with characters that include everyone that we have met in his previous books and a lot of new characters good and bad. This takes on a subject that interests all of us, insurance and medical care with a several murders being investigated by Dismas Hardy and Detective Abe Glitsky and team topping it of to keep it interesting. I cannot remember anyone else writing so knowingly about the health circle; HMO Insurance, medical service personal and subcontractors, hospital, and drugs (medicine) both brand name and generic. It's a vicious circle. John Lescroart's research work must have been a tremendous job for this book. He keeps a very large variety of very human characters, by first and last names, police detectives, doctors, managers or directors, nurses, attorney, district attorneys and their office personnel busy--all with the normal frailties of humans. Investigating directors who were negotiating for money and medicine, and controlling a busy group doctors and nurses keeps the book moving at a fast pace. After reading this book you will understand a lot better egotistic doctors, (who were only interested in saving lives, and believed that people should this) when they have time from their rough schedules to stop and answer police's question.
Roger Lee
Rating:
Summary: Barely Deserves Four Stars
Review: THE OATH is a murder mystery involving the apparently accidental death of Tim Markham, the well known head of San Francisco's largest HMO in his own hospital as the result of the injuries sustained in a hit and run incident during his early morning jog. However,an autopsy reveals that his demise was aided by an overdose of potassium administered in his own hospital and the Homicide Chief, Lieutenant Abe Glitsky, suddenly is investigating a case with manifold political implications. Meanwhile, Dr. Eric Kensing, who was on duty in the ER when Markham was admitted and who has hired Dismas Hardy as his lawyer, soon becomes the prime suspect.(Understandably so, since he has had several professional controversies at the HMO regarding the standard of care being afforded patients as financial pressures interfere with physician decision making. Furthermore, Kensing is separated from his wife due to her long running affair with Markham.) Soon other murders occur; in addition, it appears that several severely ill patients at the hospital have died recently under suspicious circumstances.
Thus, Hardy and Glitsky soon square off and their friendship that has been chronicled through several previous books by Lescroart becomes severely strained. For previous readers of the author , one of the most enjoyable elements of this book will be the further evolution of the lives and relationships of the several of the other characters that have appeared over the years in this series. This is a police and legal procedural, as well as a commentary on medical ethics, politics and greed. Lescroart's plotting is good, but the attempts at misdirection are not as clever as in several of his earlier works. In most instances, it soon becomes obvious in what direction the facts are leading.
This is a fast paced, easy and fun read; it was great not only to catch up with Glitsky and Hardy again as they eventually teamed up to solve another case, but also have another mystery which involved revisiting old familiar friends including David Freeman,Jeff Elliot,Clarence Jackman, Treya Glitsky, and ,of course, Diz's wife Frannie, and their two great kids Rebecca, and Vincent Hardy.
As usual, Lescroart's plotting is believable and his phraseology is enjoyable, I particularly chuckled over the "no-humans-involved" cases, where everyone already has a substantial criminal record and which are the diametric opposite of this white collar, high rent district crime. What made this novel less compelling than some of the earlier Diz and Abe books were two factors, First,,while the multiple threads of the story were all woven together very well and in the end and all details were explained, they also in some ways made the outcome less surprising. Second, this was not a well edited book; there were some incorrect facts and several small errors which were not caught and while they were of no real consequence they were nevertheless annoying.In the end, I decided that these factors were not enough to lower the rating to three stars but definitely kept it from being on the five star level despite my enjoyment.
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