Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: A good book always has a hook. It may be as simple as "Gregor Mendel awoke to find himself changed into a giant insect..." or the like. But, John Lescroart's "Dead Irish," has a boxing glove at the end of a spring, like those old Warner Brothers cartoons. The hero, Diz (for Dismas, a name attributed to the good thief on the cross) Hardy is a bartender, an ex-cop, ex-attorney and divorcé who gets bribed into investigating the death of a young man, his boss's brother-in-law, an apparent suicide for a partnership in the business. The story goes down from there. We get exposure to cop-infighting, petty jealousies and one of the most unfeasible plots since Phantom of the Opera. The setting is San Francisco, which is described as being "hot," [well, I remember it getting up to almost 90 one summer in the city] and uncomfortable. The action in the story is convoluted, and we are exposed to shifting points of view, confused and confusing characters and one non sequitur after another. The writing drags and even at the climax, there is little pick up in the pace of the story. The ending, burdened with an unlikely motive and MO, essential in a mystery, unravels into a frazzled mess of unresolution. All in all, a very disappointing read.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow mystery with too much filler.
Review: Dead Irish is a slow mystery that eventually catches your attention but not until the final 3/4s of the book. Too many characters and subplots that don't have much bearing on the actual mystery was rather confusing to me at times.
Rating: 
Summary: Not his best, not his worst
Review: Dead Irish is an entertaining novel and Dismas Hardy is an extremely likeable character. For those who have read "A Certain Justice," you'll like this much better. For those who have read "The 13th Juror," this won't match up but it's worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing, Heartbreaking with Page Turning Twists
Review: Dismas Hardy is a brooding Irishman who wears the pain of his personal losses like a costume. He is a former marine, policeman, attorney, husband and father and each of these past roles - and their attendant disappointments, pain and loss - play a very big part in his solitary and aloof approach to life. He tends bar at one of his closest friend's, Moses McGuire, neighborhood bar, plays a fairly decent game of darts, and drinks too many Black and Tans. He is a bartender who will listen to your sad tale, provide some bar-side philosophy with a bit of Irish cynicism and take your keys when you have had too much. He is in a slow spiral down until Moses's brother-in-law, Eddie Cochran, turns up dead. The first thinking is suicide but all those who know Eddie are convinced it was murder. Dismas makes it his business to find out.
This is a fast paced novel with many interesting, fully developed characters and enough questions on each page to keep you turning.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, Heartbreaking with Page Turning Twists
Review: Dismas Hardy is a brooding Irishman who wears the pain of his personal losses like a costume. He is a former marine, policeman, attorney, husband and father and each of these past roles - and their attendant disappointments, pain and loss - play a very big part in his solitary and aloof approach to life. He tends bar at one of his closest friend's, Moses McGuire, neighborhood bar, plays a fairly decent game of darts, and drinks too many Black and Tans. He is a bartender who will listen to your sad tale, provide some bar-side philosophy with a bit of Irish cynicism and take your keys when you have had too much. He is in a slow spiral down until Moses's brother-in-law, Eddie Cochran, turns up dead. The first thinking is suicide but all those who know Eddie are convinced it was murder. Dismas makes it his business to find out.
This is a fast paced novel with many interesting, fully developed characters and enough questions on each page to keep you turning.
Rating:
Summary: much better than his later incarnations
Review: Dismas Hardy is an ex-Marine, ex-cop, ex-attorney, ex-Catholic, ex-sharkwalker, ex-husband... Since the death of his 7 month old son, for which he blames himself, he has abandoned his marriage, his career & nearly abandoned all hope--"You could put your hope in anything you wanted, he figured, but to put it in hope itself was just pure foolishness." Now he bartends days at his friend Moses McGuire's bar, plays darts almost obsessively & drinks a few too many Black and Tans and Irish Whiskey's. He's just "skimming over the surface" of life, afraid to test the depths. But when Moses' brother-in-law is found dead--a young man who Moses' little sister says was a younger version of Hardy before life chewed him up--Hardy ends up investigating whether it was murder or suicide. Gradually, & perhaps inevitably, he begins to care again. I started one of these books a couple years ago & it didn't grab me, probably because it is a third person private eye novel--a major departure from the rules of the genre. But I found this one for fifty cents & figured I'd give it a shot. I'm extremely glad that I did. GRADE: B+
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic whodunit with a surprise ending!
Review: Eddie Cochran is dead from a gun shot wound to the head. Whether his death was a suicide or a homicide has yet to be determined by the San Francisco Police Department. To them Eddie is just another dead body and they have no shortage of those to investigate. So Moses McGuire, a local bar owner and Eddie's brother-in-law, enlists the help of his good friend Dismas Hardy to find out what really happened to Eddie. Hardy is an ex-cop and ex-lawyer who walked away from his career years ago after a personal tragedy and now bartends for Moses part-time. If it was a suicide, as seems apparent, why was the gun found in Eddie's left hand when he is right-handed? Also, there appears to be a suicide note but it is vague and unfinished. No one wants to believe that this bright young man with a prosperous future, a beautiful wife and a new baby on the way would simply end his own life for no apparent reason. Was it in fact a suicide? Or was Eddie caught in the middle of some sort of drug deal gone bad? Or is there another unthinkable factor involved in his death? This is an outstanding whodunit!! It is also a very well-written story about a close-knit family dealing with the death of a beloved son, brother and husband. The ending was superb and I was totally shocked when I learned who the killer was as it is the very last person I would have suspected! I recently finished reading Mr. Lescroart's latest novel, "The Second Chair", and was so impressed with Dismas Hardy that I decided to go back and read the series from the beginning. Hardy is a very engaging character. He has no aversion to throwing back more than a few drinks, loves a good dart game ( even carries his own set of darts around with him in his coat pocket) and has both a sense of humor and a great nose for detective work. If you have not read this first installment I advise you to pick up a copy. I'm so glad I did!
Rating:
Summary: Not blown away by this
Review: I listened to the audio version, and was pretty disappointed. I'm hoping some of the problem is the abridgement. While the book is ostensibly about Hardy, he didn't really seem to play a major role. It was just a grim tale about a LOT of people messing up their lives, and killing a lot of other people in the process.
In the middle, Hardy gets some romantic action, after reminiscing about the death of his baby, for which he feels responsible. From his description of events, he IS responsible, so that did nothing to endear the character to me.
I saw every plot twist a mile before it happened, and I consider myself a pretty naive reader, so that's not good.
I gather this book is one of a series, and wonder if maybe the author is counting on us to already like his principal character. I'll try another Lescroart book, but if it's like this one, it will be my last.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of good characters...
Review: In fact, way too many of them. Lescroart is so busy marching people on and off stage that he forgets to get the plot going for way, way too long. The Dismas Hardy series does get better. But unless you're one of those compulsive people (like me) who has to read a series from the beginning, skip this one.
Rating:
Summary: see john grow
Review: Several reviewers have compared this novel unfavourably to later examples of the Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series. But the book is the first of the series, and although it's weaker than later examples, it's a good read, with very sympa characters. And as always, the essence of San Francisco is bottled in some very evocative descriptions. So, fair plot, good characters, excellent setting. Well worth a look, and the later books in the series just get better. Press on.....
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