Dead Irish (Dismas Hardy)

This review has more to do with the series than with Dead Irish. Working my way through the Dismas Hardy novels. Unlike many current detective writers, Lescroart eschews the charismatic psychotic serial killer and his/her elaborate, shocking crimes - burned, hanged, flayed, dismembered, et al. - and offers rather average folks - cops, secretaries, lawyers, etc. - caught up in difficult and unusual circumstances but trying to deal with the challenges of everyday life - work, family, friends. His characters' reflections on these challenges are simple, poignant, thoughtful evocations of the issues that we all face, and Lescroart does a superb job of coalescing the vapors, giving voice to our ruminations and fears. His work reminds me of the writing of James Gould Cozzens who won a Pulitzer Prize and was considered for the Nobel Prize. Writing during the middle decades of the 20th century, Cozzens was attacked by critics for being hopelessly out of date. His heroes are quite ordinary men, living quite ordinary lives and find themselves in the midst of a crisis that tests their moral and ethical beliefs. Like Cozzens' characters, Lescroart's heroes stand near us, offering the opportunity to reflect on our own lives. The plots have the requisite twists and turns and tensions to keep them moving briskly, but it is the thoughts and feelings of the characters that lift these books well above the general run of detective/thriller/mystery novels. The layers build as the series progresses so stay the course and enjoy the books - it's definitely worth it.

Over that last few years I have read several of the Dismas Hardy books. What really stuck out for me as one of my biggest gripes was that the characters really felt set in stone. I never felt like they were growing from one book to the next. I also felt alot like Lescroart was writing the same story over and over again with slight variations. So in my mind I was viewing Lescroart as a talanted mystery/thriller writer who was trying too hard to write for an imaginary audience whom he felt wanted an exact sort of book from him and that he had become too attached to his characters to alow for them to undergo changes. Thats why I think I felt that Dead Irish was such a refreshing Lescroart book for one who has basically worked backwards along the series arc. In Dead Irish the characters are just being formed, given substance. Its interesting to see the long standing friendships that would later come to be take shape. The story itself is also pretty interesting, though nothing earth shattering. What I like about it is that all in all it is a fairly simple plot, no mass killings or huge rampages. Instead this book is about the small things. Dismas' friend is killed or has commited suicide and he takes it upon himself to uncover exactly what occured. This is one of the best Lescroart books. I would say you should read this if you have not yet done so and have previously read others in the series. However, if you are looking for something earth shattering in this genre I would suggest that you turn instead to Cormac McCarthy's 'No Country for Old Men'.

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.

This is a great thriller. Hard to put down.

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+