Dead Irish by John Lescroart

Dead IrishDead Irish by John Lescroart
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One star looks more negative than I really want it to be, since this book wasn’t badly written, but the simple truth is I didn’t like it, so one star is my only option on Goodreads. I’m giving it two stars on my own blog, since I think of one star as a warning to stay away at all costs; I think on another day or month I might have stuck with this one and gotten into it. The problem was, it was boring. So boring that I gave up after 165 pages. Some people would say I shouldn’t be reviewing a book I haven’t read, but I think that I got far enough into the book to decide whether it’s worth continuing. Bear in mind I’m a Lescroart fan, too. I really liked Betrayal and The Hearing, among other books of his, and highly recommend those. I chose Dead Irish because it was the first Dismas Hardy novel, and I have enjoyed the series immensely, but if I had started with this one, I wouldn’t have continued, and the loss would have been mine. I think it serves a useful purpose to remind people that even good authors strike out from time to time. Just because a novel isn’t a home run doesn’t mean you should ban an author from your reading list. And if you’re wondering about the baseball metaphor, that’s intentional. Dismas Hardy is a big Giants fan. The first death in this book takes place at Candlestick (which tells you how old it is). So give Lescroart a read, but start with The Hearing.

View all my reviews