Guilt by John Lescroart

Even though this is an older book, it’s still a great page-turning legal thriller. The characters, of which there are several, are well-developed, showing just enough of both good and evil and plain old human complexity to keep us guessing for the most part.  Accused of killing his wife, Mark Dooher, a well-to-do and highly respected lawyer for the Catholic diocese in San Francisco, his devoted side-kick and ultimate legal defendant, Wes Farrell, and sad and brooding homicide inspector Abe Glitsky, form a triangle around which many other exceptional characters revolve in this murder mystery. It is the complexity of the relationships among these characters that make this book a standout.

As the murder investigation starts to take shape, Wes Farrell meets and becomes involved with the director of the local rape crisis center, Sam (probably short for Samantha) Duncan, who later provides some telling evidence against his friend and client, Mark Dooher.

While volatile, the relationship between Wes and Sam is one of the more stable ones in the book, providing witty dialogue for the two characters and a little comic relief from all the tension that is building around the murder investigation and trial, and a nice balance to the more twisted love relationships in which Mark Dooher engages, in this story.

As the evidence, although circumstantial, against Dooher mounts, not only for one murder, but perhaps three, Dooher pulls his loyal followers more tightly around him while others become more convinced than ever of his guilt, in spite of his having the blessing of the Archbishop himself.  With a great surpise ending, I found this book to be an equally engaging fictional counterpart to A Civil Action.

622 pps., paperback

(Posted for Ann Roberts by Annie)