There are four reasons that I really like the whodunits of John Lescroart. He sets all of his books in San Francisco. I lived there for ten years and am familiar with most of his locations, and in this case at least, familiarity breeds content. But it’s more than that. San Francisco has a well-deserved reputation for being the home of larger than life characters and institutions that makes for a vibrant backdrop for the action.
Lescroart also sets a big table. He has a large number of recurring characters. At the center of the cast are Abe Glitzky and Dismas Hardy, who were partners when they were cops in San Francisco while in their twenties. Hardy has gone through a series of tragedies and other learning experiences and has become a defense attorney. Glitzky has stayed with the police and has risen in the ranks. So far, the highest rank he’s achieved is Assistant Chief of Police. In addition, both of them have families, other friends and business associates. These other characters generally get introduced in one book, stay around for two or three others, having a major role in at least book, then retire to the sidelines to be used when the author needs them. Lescroart has created almost his own world and made this a real series rather than a bunch of books with the same protagonist.
Third, Lescroart pays attention to the real world. In this book, he writes about the defense contractors in Iraq. In other books, he has covered the “health care”, industry, child kidnapping by their parents, misconduct in the “energy” industry, misuse of the grand jury process by prosecutors, and others.
Finally, these books are solidly in the noir tradition. Concepts like fact and truth, justice and morals and law become squirmy things, twisting around each other in interesting patterns.
Betrayal is divided into four parts. The first section takes place in and around Baghdad, Iraq in 2003. It is portrayed as a place where a person with a military background, lots of contacts and no scruples can get away with just about anything and be well rewarded in the process. There is a scene where the head of a defense contract firm and his top lieutenant are talking strategy while killing a bottle of single malt whiskey and tossing around a shrink-wrapped packet containing 500 $100 bills. The second part takes place in a suburb of San Francisco where the moral quagmire of the Iraq war has spread its influence. Someone gets killed, and a man involved in the whole scene gets arrested. The third covers the trial of the arrested man. The fourth section finally gets the regular cast of characters involved and the case gets solved.
This book might disappoint Lescroart’s regular readers. The pace slows to a crawl in the third section. While there is a lot of legal strategy and tactics involved in the trial, the reader won’t care much because the author has already told him the outcome.
Other than that, Betrayal has all of the elements I have come to expect from Lescroart. The pace is good. The writing is good without being self-indulgent. The characters are strong, some even memorable. There are a lot of plot twists. Lescroart is a master at hiding clues. The story deals with moral questions in ways that are both timely and timeless.
