Cover image of "Poison" by John Lescroart, a Dismas Hardy courtroom drama

John Lescroart surprises with a courtroom drama in which the suspense is all about whether Dismas Hardy’s new case will ever get into a courtroom. Poison is the 17th novel in Lescroart’s first-rate series about the San Francisco defense attorney who is also an ex-Marine, a bartender, and a former assistant DA. As the title suggests, the case at the heart of this tale is about a death by poison.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Dismas (“Diz”) Hardy, now sixty-something, is the managing partner of a small firm of San Francisco plaintiffs’ attorneys that includes his daughter Rebecca (“the Beck”). His son, Vincent, is now 26 and working at Facebook. Dismas is still recovering from two gunshot wounds suffered in an earlier case. Neither he nor his wife Frannie is happy at all about his having gotten shot—again. Lawyering is not supposed to be a perilous occupation. And now a new case may expose Dismas to new danger.

The charismatic owner of a specialized plumbing and fixtures company has died suddenly at the age of 62. Although first thought to be the result of a heart attack, a second autopsy has revealed the cause to be poison. Grant Wagner had four adult children, all of them involved in running the company, and a stepson from his second marriage.

Poison (Dismas Hardy #17) by John Lescroart (2018) 305 pages ★★★★☆

Although Wagner’s death was ruled either a suicide or a homicide, the San Francisco cops assigned to the case take little time to arrest Abby Jarvis, the bookkeeper at Wagner’s company and his longtime girlfriend. Jarvis calls Dismas from jail because he had defended her a decade ago on a vehicular homicide charge that sent her to prison for five years. The cops have already decided Jarvis is guilty, so the investigation into other possible suspects falls largely to the investigator Dismas retains, Wyatt Hunt. The circle of possible murderers quickly widens to include all four of Wagner’s children and a former girlfriend. Meanwhile, the detectives who arrested Jarvis are investigating the shooting death of a young entrepreneur. Can there possibly be a connection between the two cases? As readers, we know that’s likely. But we won’t find out how for a long time . . .

This is by no means the first Dismas Hardy courtroom drama I’ve reviewed. You’ll find three of the other reviews at A great start to John Lescroart’s Dismas Hardy series, A gripping legal thriller full of surprises from John Lescroart, and John Lescroart: The joy of San Francisco noir.

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