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Rating: 
Summary: Who killed Tim Markham?
Review: For all the readers who like their old friends back in stories, The Oath is a must read. Abe Glistky, the homicide cop, and Dismas Hardy, the one time DA who is now a defense lawyer begin by talking about hit and run homicides not being murder. A moving vehicle is just not a good murder weapon. Tim Markham, the CEO of an HMO in trouble, is hit by a hit and run driver with injuries so severe that no one thinks he will survive. The cause of his death in the intensive care unit of his own hospital appears to be fairly obvious until it comes to light that the death rate is unsually high. Eric Kensing, Markham's attending physician, is the chief suspect when an autopsy reveals that Markham died of an overdose of Potassiam. Kensing's wife had been involved with Markham; the head of the hospital had been intent on cutting costs at any price and everyone seemed unhappy with the care patients were receiving within the HMO. Lescroart has taken a popular current topic and brought to light some of the shortcomings of managed health care. He and Abe work the case from different angles but eventually get together with some suprises along the way. It's medical ethics vs. cost intensive care and the frailities of human personalities from page to page. It's a good read with Lescroart from start to finish....and there is a heartbreaker at the end with a final surprise. Oh yes, for Dismas Hardy fans, you will find that he is getting a little bored once again with Frannie and her needs, his kids and their needs, and still trying to figure out where his priorities should be. The death of his first son is still tormenting him and he goes to visit the grave on the day of his son's 28th birthday. The boy was a baby when we started reading the Dismas Hardy stories. They are still good. Who Killed Tim Markham is a questioned that gets answered finally at the very end of a page turner.
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Summary: a powerful novel of lescroart
Review: I read this novel not too long ago. A family member of mine just introduced me to it and i had never heard of john lescroart before at all. But i have to say it was something of a book to read. One of the best that i think that I have read of this author in a while. I would recommend this novel to anyone who is looking for a good book to read on one of those rainy days.
I am going to check out The first law from my local library and The second chair sound pretty good also.
Ryan Barry
Music1379@aol.com
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Summary: Another Great Book from Lescroart!!
Review: John Lescroart has once again written an intense book surround a murder investigation. With his usual characters, attorney Dismas Hardy and Homicide Investigator Abe Glitsky, Lescroart once again keeps the action coming nonstop. This book involves some very real issues in the United States today. Issues surrounding health care and how we pay for it are discussed throughout the book within the story. The plot thickens as one of Hardy's clients is suspected of murder, and Glitsky thinks he has his man. But, as usual in a Lecroart novel, there are numerous twists and turns until there is finally a stunning ending. Did Hardy's client commit the crime? Will Hardy and Glitsky be able to maintain their friendship? What's going on behind the scenes at a San Francisco hospital? If you pick up this book, you won't put it down until you know the answers to all these questions.
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: 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!!
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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 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: Worth Reading!
Review: The Oath is the first book I've read by John Lescroart but won't be the last. Lescroart's strong suits are in his ability to develop multidimensional, credible major as well as secondary characters, believable multilayered story lines, and witty dialogue -- all of which are intertwined in an entertaining, fast-moving mystery. The basic plot involves an HMO executive who becomes a victim of a hit-and-run driver and then a murder victim after being brought to one of his own hospitals for treatment. Dismas Hardy becomes the defense attorney for the doctor presumed to be the murderer and Lt. Glitsky is in charge of the murder investigation. The relationship between Hardy and Glitsky is one I enjoyed very much and am looking forward to learning more about when I read other books in the series. Without going into detail (and perhaps spoiling things for potential readers), what keeps me from giving The Oath a higher rating is that I found its ending to be a bit predictable in some ways and a bit far-fetched in others. Nonetheless, The Oath is worth reading and is a book I think you'll enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: A Stunning Disappointment
Review: There are some authors whose work we take glee in disliking -- Tom Clancy comes to mind -- and there are those whose work we have cherished and fully expect to continue to deliver top-shelf results (Elmore Leonard comes to mind). John Lescroart is one such author: his Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky novels have been unfailingly enjoyable, providing superb characters, fluid story lines, intellectual challenge and -- most crucial for the mystery genre -- credible surprises. And so "The Oath" comes as a major disappointment. Hardy and Glitsky, whose sparring, affectionate relationship and individual strengths and failings have been the fundamental strength of previous Lescroart novels, are here reduced to almost peripheral characters. Other characters take center stage, then virtually disappear from the novel. The writing is lazy and cliche-ridden. The red herrings (green cars, bumper stickers, motives and opportunity) have a distinct, fishy smell to them. The half-hearted attempt at the end of the novel to suggest that one of our favorite characters has died is not only clumsy but insulting. The resolution of the "mystery" is a heavy-handed "deus ex machina." The fundamental problem with the book is that it's artifice is unconcealed: all novels are works of artifice, of course (that is, after all, what a plot is), but the best novels (including previous Lescroart books) conceal the artifice with a smooth and believable sheen. In "The Oath," the bricks and mortar of the plot are painfully visible: one can see Lescroart laboriously transferring plot outline to narrative, and the seams and cracks are everywhere.
Rating: 
Summary: The Oath
Review: This is the first Lescroart novel I've read. Though I'll try another, it won't be because this one is great. It isn't. I wouldn't recommend starting here. The prose is very good, and SOME of the characterization quite remarkable--the character of Dr. Kensing is original and not at all black-and-white, hardly the virtuous innocent of much genre fiction. Some of the psychological development is good--watching Bracco and Fisk grow to their respective bits of self-knowledge is satisfying. One vignette between Hardy's wife and kids is as fine a piece of writing on affection as you'll find. But I'm gonna have to take other reviewers' word that the Hardy/Glitsky friendship is believable in other novels. Though some of their dialog is quite witty--reminiscent of Spenser and Hawk in Robert B. Parker's singular novels--mostly the relationship as portrayed here it is just stupid. No one in his right mind would remain friends with Glitsky after some of his machinations here. "Ah, you've completely betrayed me, and lied to me, but since it is work-related and friendship is more important than professional conflict, let's have a barbeque, old bud." Like that. Uh-huh. And Hardy is sort of a cipher. I didn't understand at all what makes him tick. What really left me empty was the denouement. It could not possibly be more cliched. There is simply nothing interesting or original or insightful or surprising in it. And in genre novels, the denouement is supposed to involve some showdown between the good guy and the bad guy. Here, the falsely accused guy we've spent most of the novel getting to know gets cleared and drops out of the picture too soon, so he is no part of the resolution. The only person who gets cleared in the climax is a relatively minor character whom we've not been given any reason to care much about. Genre novels are called genre novels because they observe some rules of the genre--and one is that the resolution is suppose to be where the innocent is cleared and the surprise guilt of someone else is revealed. It's a battle of good versus evil, where nothing is as it seems, and we are all reassured because--against all odds-good beats evil. Here, that just doesn't happen I figure Lesroart is worth another try, because of the things I've commented positively on here. But this one just doesn't cut it.
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