Martini, Steve:Double Tap
- Paperback 2006, ISBN: 9780515139730
Island Books. Good. 4.15 x 1.38 x 6.89 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 1998. 656 pages. Cover very worn.<br>A great thriller: breakneck pacin g, electrifying courtroom scenes, and a… More...
Island Books. Good. 4.15 x 1.38 x 6.89 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 1998. 656 pages. Cover very worn.<br>A great thriller: breakneck pacin g, electrifying courtroom scenes, and a cast of richly crafted ch aracters.--People Mark Dooher is a prosperous San Francisco atto rney and a prominent Catholic, the last person anyone would suspe ct of a brutal crime. But Dooher, a paragon of success and a mast er of all he touches, is about to be indicted for murder. Charge d with savagely killing his own wife, Dooher is fighting for his reputation and his life in a high-profile case that is drawing do zens of lives into its wake--from former spouses to former friend s, from a beautiful, naive young attorney to a defense lawyer who se own salvation depends on getting his client off. Now, as the trial builds to a crescendo, as evidence is sifted and witnesses discredited, as a good cop tries to pick up the pieces of his sha ttered life and a D.A. risks her career, the truth about Mark Doo her is about to explode. For in a trial that will change the live s of everyone it touches, there is one thing that no one knows--u ntil it is much too late. . . . Praise for Guilt A well-paced l egal thriller . . . one of the best in this flourishing genre to come along in a while.--The Washington Post Book World Begin [Gu ilt] over a weekend . . . If you start during the workweek, you w ill be up very late, and your pleasure will be tainted with, well , guilt.--The Philadelphia Inquirer A wonderful novel . . . remi niscent of Scott Turow. John Lescroart isn't a lawyer, but he wri tes like one.--Dayton Daily News Crackling legal action . . . ro bust and intelligent entertainment.--Publishers Weekly Editorial Reviews Review No one is above the law. A great thriller: brea kneck pacing, electrifying courtroom scenes, and a cast of richly crafted characters. --People A well-paced legal thriller...one of the best in this flourishing genre to come along in a while. - -The Washington Post Book World Begin [Guilt] over a weekend...i f you start during the work week, you will be up very very late, and your pleasure will be tainted with, well, guilt. --The Philad elphia Inquirer From the Author If you read John Grisham and Sco tt Turow, you'll devour John Lescroart. Lescroart looks like a mo uthful to pronounce. In fact, the last name of the New York Times bestselling author of The 13th Juror and Guilt rolls off the ton gue easily. It's Less' kwah. Try it. Less'-Kwah. A decidedly Fren ch name for a red-headed Californian of three-fourths Irish herit age. What makes Lescroart's 10 novels stand out from other legal thrillers is his cultivated skill at entertaining. The Davis, Cal ifornia author may have abandoned his guitar-playing/singing care er when he turned 30. But he employs at the computer keyboard the same audience-grabbing skills he learned on the stage. Pick up a Lescroart book--escape into the San Francisco world of Dismas Ha rdy and Abe Glitsky--and you'll know why John consistently earns starred reviews from Publishers Weekly. From the Back Cover Mark Dooher is a prosperous San Francisco attorney and a prominent Ca tholic, the last person anyone would suspect of a brutal crime. B ut Dooher, a paragon of success and a master of all he touches, i s about to be indicted for murder. Charged with savagely killing his own wife, Dooher is fighting for his reputation and his life in a high-profile case that is drawing dozens of lives into its wake--from former spouses to former friends, from a beautiful, na ive young attorney to a defense lawyer whose own salvation depend s on getting his client off. Now, as the trial builds to a cresc endo, as evidence is sifted and witnesses discredited, as a good cop tries to pick up the pieces of his shattered life and a D.A. risks her career, the truth about Mark Dooher is about to explode . For in a trial that will change the lives of everyone it touche s, there is one thing that no one knows--until it is much too lat e.... About the Author John Lescroart is the New York Times best selling author of numerous legal thrillers and mysteries, most of them set in contemporary San Francisco. Among his novels are The Fall, The Keeper, The Ophelia Cut, The Hunt Club, The Second Cha ir, The First Law, Nothing but the Truth, and Dead Irish, as well as two novels featuring Auguste Lupa, the reputed son of Sherloc k Holmes. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserve d. Mark Dooher couldn't take his eyes off the young woman who had just entered the dining room at Fior d'Italia and was being seat ed, facing them, at a table ten feet away. His companion for lun ch was, like Dooher, an attorney. His name was Wes Farrell and he generally practiced in a different stratum--lower--than Dooher d id. The two men had been best friends since they were kids. Farre ll glanced up from his calamari, his baleful eyes glinting with h umor, trying to be subtle as he took in the goddess across the ro om. Too young, he said. My foot, Wes. All parts of you, not jus t your foot. Besides which, Farrell went on, you're married. I a m married. Farrell nodded. Keep repeating it. It's good for you. I, on the other hand, am getting divorced. I can never get divo rced. Sheila would never divorce me. You could divorce her if yo u wanted to... Impossible. Then, amending: Not that I'd ever wan t to, of course, but impossible. Why? Dooher went back to his p asta for a moment. Because, my son, even in our jaded age, when n inety percent of your income derives from your work as counsel to the Archdiocese of San Francisco, when you are in fact a promine nt player in the Roman Catholic community, as I am, a divorce wou ld play some havoc with your business. Across the board. Not just the Church itself, but all the ancillary... Farrell broke off a bite-sized piece of Italian bread and dipped it into the little dish of extra virgin olive oil that rested between them. I doubt it. People get divorced all the time. Your best friend, for examp le, is getting divorced right now. Have I mentioned that? Lydia' s divorcing you, Wes. You're not divorcing her. It's different. G od, he said, look at her. Farrell glanced up again. She looks go od. Good? Dooher feasted for another moment on the vision. That woman is so far beyond 'good' that the light from 'good' is going to take a year to get to her. At which time, you'll be a year o lder and forever out of her reach. Pass the butter. Butter will kill you, you know. Farrell nodded. Either that or something els e. This calamari milleottocentoottantasei, for example. Or prono uncing it. A handsome young man in a business suit--every male c ustomer in the restaurant wore a business suit--was approaching t he woman's table. He pulled a chair out across from her, smiling, saying something. She was looking up at him, her expression cool , reserved. Farrell noted it, and something else. Don't look now , he said, but isn't the guy sitting down with her--doesn't he wo rk for you? Wes Farrell was on his schlumpy way up toward Columb us and the North Beach walk-up out of which he ran his law busine ss. Dooher lingered in the doorway at Fior d'Italia, then turned and went back inside to the bar, where he ordered a Pellegrino. He sipped the bottled water and considered his reflection in the bar's mirror. He still looked good. He had his hair--the light br own streaked with blond, camouflaging the hint of gray that was o nly just beginning to appear around the temples. The skin of his face was as unlined as it had been at thirty. Now, at forty-six, he knew he looked ten years younger, which was enough--any more youth would be bad for business. His body carried a hundred and e ighty pounds on a six-foot frame. Today he wore a tailored Italia n double-breasted suit in a refined shade of green that picked up the flecks in his eyes. From where he sat at the bar, he could watch her in profile. She had loosened up somewhat, but Wes had b een right--there was a tension in the way she sat, in her body la nguage. The man with her was Joe Avery--again, Wes had nailed it- -a sixth-year associate at McCabe & Roth, the firm Dooher managed . (McCabe and Roth both had been forced to retire during the down sizing of the past two years. Now, in spite of the name, it was D ooher's firm, beginning to show profit again.) He drank his Ital ian water, looked at himself in the mirror over the bar. What was he doing here? He couldn't allow himself to leave. This was som ething he thought he'd outgrown long ago--such an overwhelming ph ysical attraction. Oh sure, when he'd been younger...in college a couple of times...even the first few years of the marriage, the occasional dalliance, stepping out, somebody coming on to him, u sually on a business trip or one of the firm retreats. But that had stopped after the one crisis, Sheila getting wind of what was going on with one of them. She wasn't going to have it. Infideli ty wasn't going to be part of their lives. Dooher had better deci de whether he wanted to sleep around or keep the kids. A hundred times since, he wished he'd let Sheila go, taking the kids with her. But in truth, back then, fifteen years ago, he was already unable to risk a divorce, already working with some of the charit ies, the Archdiocese itself. There was big money there, clean wor k. And Sheila would have scotched it if things had gotten ugly. He knew she would have. As she would today. So he'd simply put h is hormones out of his mind, put all of his effort into real life --work, the wife, the kids, the house. He would be satisfied with the ten-fifteen-twenty days of vacation, the new car. Everyone else seemed to survive in that secure between-the-lines adult exi stence. It wasn't so bad. Except Mark Dooher hated it. He never got over hating it. He had never had to play by the same rules as everyone else. He was simply better at everything, smarter, more charismatic. He deserved more. He deserved better. That couldn 't be all there was. Do your job, live the routine, get old, die. That couldn't be it. Not for him. He couldn't get the woman off his mind. Well, he would just have to do it, that was all. He'd call up his fabled discipline and simply will her out of his con sciousness. There was nothing to be done with her anyway. Dooher didn't trust the dynamic of lust, that hormonal rush and then the long regret. Well, he wasn't about to get involved with all that . It was better just to stop thinking about her. Or at least not get confused, keep it in the realm of fantasy. It wasn't as if h e knew anything about her, as if there could be real attraction. In fact, if that turned out to be the case, it would be far more complicated. Then what? Leave Sheila...? No, it was better not to pursue it at all. He was just in one of his funks, believing t hat the opportunity that would give his life new meaning was pass ing him by. He knew better. In reality, everything disappointed. Nothing turned out as you hoped. He'd just suck it up and put h er out of his mind, do nothing about the fantasy. He didn't even want to take one step, because who knew where that could lead? He 'd forget all about her. He wasn't going to do anything. It was stupid to consider. Joe Avery looked up from the clutter of pape r littering his desk, a legal brief that was already anything but brief. Sir? Dooher, the friendliest boss on the planet, was in the doorway, one hand extended up to the sill, the other on his b elt, coat open, sincere smile. A Mardi Gras party. Feast before f ast. Unless you've got other plans... Well, I... You'll enjoy i t. Sheila and I do it every year. Just casual, no costumes, masks , taking to the streets afterwards, none of that. And pretty good food if you like Cajun. Anyway, eight o'clock, if you're free... Avery was young and gung-ho and hadn't spoken to Dooher more th an a hundred times in his six years with the firm, had never spen t any time with him socially. His mouth hung open in surprise at the invitation, but he was nodding, already planning to be there, wondering what was happening. Dooher was going on. If you've go t other plans, don't worry about it, but you've paid your dues ar ound here--you're up for shareholder this year if I'm not mistake n? Avery nodded. Next, actually. Dooher waved that off. Well, w e'll see. But come on up. Bring your girlfriend, you got one. Or not. Your call. Just let us know. Then Dooher was gone. ., Island Books, 1998, 2.5, New York: Jove Books. Near Fine. 2006. First Paperback Edition. Mass Market Paperback. No spine crease. Full number line 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. . 1.3 x 6.7 x 4.2 Inches. 416 pages. A Paul Madriani Novel, No. 8. Madriani is faced with daunting ballistics evidence: a so-called "double tap"-two bullet wounds tightly grouped in the victim's head, shots that could have been made only by a crack marksman. Paul's client, Emiliano Ruiz, is an enigma-a career soldier who refuses to discuss his past though it is clear that he is a battle-tested pro. Ruiz is accused of killing a beautiful businesswoman and guru of a high-tech software empire catering to the military. A key to the case: the murder weapon is one used solely in special operations, where the "double tap" has become the signature of the most skilled assassins. Ruiz is sitting on secrets-there's a seven-year gap on his military resume, for which Madriani can find no details. And, more troubling, he discovers that the victim and her company were involved in a controversial government computer program designed to combat terrorists. Madriani finds himself in a deadly legal quagmire-with a client who is unwilling to cooperate and prosecutors who stonewall his every question about the victim's shadowy business and his client's past. Justice, and the unvarnished truth, has never been so elusive-or so dangerous. < ., Jove Books, 2006, 4<
