The Hunt Club (Wyatt Hunt Novel)

I was wondering how well the author would carry off the new main characters but at the end of the first chapter I was totally hooked! The writing is flawless, the characters are well-developed and I am looking forward to this continuing as a series along side Dismas and Abe. This, as his other novels, is fast-paced and hard to put down. Well done!

As a devoted reader of everything Mr. Lescroart has ever published, I have fallen in love with his San Francisco "Neighborhood", and the characters who inhabit it. I feel like Dismas and Frannie Hardy, Abe Glitsky, and the others are my own circle of friends, as close as my family. Reading about them over the years has been like watching my own friends and family go through the trials and tribulations of life. However, this process of moving through life meant that these people were, like the rest of us, getting older, and moving into different phases of their lives. I began to wonder what Mr. Lescroart would do as his circle of characters moved into that part of their lives when they were settling into less 'stressful' activities. He has handled the situation masterfully, befitting an author of his stature. While still capturing the sights and sounds of San Francisco, and keeping our old friends' 'neighborhood' real and lively, Mr. Lescroart has given us a blend of our familiar friends mixed with a whole new cast that continues the feel and excitement of his stories. The Hunt Club gives us a reluctant Private Investigator who travels in the same circles as our friends Dismas and Abe. He then takes us off into new territory without us even knowing it until we have accepted the new characters and the plot has taken us on the usual "Lescroart Whirlwind". A word of advice: Do NOT start this book in the evening, you'll be up all night! I can't wait to see what happens next. John Lescroart has given us a whole new family to love and enjoy. There's lots of excitement coming our way!

Lescroart is introducing two new characters, Devin Juhle & Wyatt Hunt. Like his previous books that featured the characters Dismas Hardy & Abe Glitsky, the story is still set in San Francisco. Abe & Dismas are briefly mentioned. The Hunt Club is another murder/mystery/legal thriller that will keep you guessing. There are some surprises in this well written, well researched novel. I hope that the author will continue this series.

With some 16 bestsellers to his credit John Lescroart well knows how to plot a thriller. With a multitude of TV and film appearances behind him Guerin Barry certainly knows how to narrate a suspense driven story, and he does it to a T with The Hunt Club. Audiobook fans can sit back, press a button, and know they're going to meet two exciting new characters, sharply drawn by Lescroart and compellingly read by Barry. As is often the case with this author, the opener is a grabber. A federal judge is found murdered - shot to death in his home. However, His Honor didn't die alone - also found is the body of his young mistress. San Francisco can't get enough of reading about this case. Initially, inspector Devin Juhle chalks the killings up to the revenge of a betrayed wife. Of course, it's not as easy as that. Seems there are some others who would also like the judge to breathe his last. Among them is a lovely attorney, Andrea Parsi, who has recently found her moments of fame as a commentator on Trial TV. What's a good story without romance? Wyatt Hunt, Juhle's pal, is smitten with Andrea and doesn't like it one bit when she turns up missing. Never one to pay too much attention to the rules, Hunt rounds up some of his cronies to help him find the missing woman. Little did they know what they'd find as they dug deeper into her disappearance. Surprises and suspense abound with The Hunt Club. - Gail Cooke

I picked up John Lescroart's latest book at Border's on Union Square and spent the better part of a beautiful day in San Francisco locked away in my hotel room, unable to leave until I had finished this book. The "Hunt Club" is a departure from the Dismas Hardy-Abe Glitskey series--although Dismas makes a few cameos, including as a bartender at the Little Shamrock--but Lescroart has created two new heroes in Wyatt Hunt and his friend, homicide detective Devin Juhle. And, again, Lescroart has created characters you care about. With a little backstory in the first few chapters, Lescroart not only introduces these new characters, he has you liking--even admiring--them. Then the murders happen. As with his other books, Lescroart shows you he knows San Francisco--from the beauty and riches of Sea Cliff to the squalor and smells of South Market; he knows food--from the best of San Francisco restuarants to its hide-a-ways and dives; and with meticulous research and attention to details, he knows how to keep a reader turning pages. But there is something more here. Yes, Dismas and Abe may have sometimes acting outside of the law ("The First Law") but with Wyatt Hunt, a social worker turned private investigator, Lescroart has a character neither deputized to enforce the law or a practioner of it. So Hunt can, shall we say, take liberties to get to the truth. And Lescroart is perhaps free to imagine beyond the constraints of the law. Which he does in a dramatic ending. And, good fiction sometimes leaves one wondering about the reality of what is depicted. In "Hunt Club," Lescroart shows the shallowness of "court t.v." coverage and takes us behind the camera into the lives of desperate "talent" clawing (sleeping?) their way to the big time. Taking on the most powerful union in California--the prison guards--"they're not nice people" a character says in a massive understatement--Lescroart leaves us wondering how certain criminal acts can occur in prison without the complicity of the guards, and the legths to which the union will go to effect public policy so that more people go to prison for longer terms to boost the union's membership. And while Wyatt Hunt operates outside of the law, Lescroart shows detective Juhle scupulously adhering to it--including in a scene showing the importance of judicial review of search warrants. (Hello, Patriot Act.) I still like the Dismas and Abe series (my favorite is "The Second Chair"--perhaps because it reminds me of a young women attorney being mentored by an old trial attorney like myself. She could be my daughter!) but there is a new dynamic duo in town, homicide detective Devin Juhle and the private investigator Wyatt Hunt.Together with an interesting group of hangers-on, they are known collectively as "The Hunt Club." Excellent. I want more.