The First Law

The First Law by John Lescroart At last recovered from a
near-fatal gunshot wound Lieutenant Abe Glitsky is back at
work. But instead of returning to his old job as chief of
homicide detail he’s assigned a desk job in the payroll
department where he has no business investigating
murders—until his father’s closest friend is shot dead in
a downtown pawn shop. Glitsky asks the new homicide
lieutenant about the case but the brass tells him to stay
out of it. Guided by the Patrol Special—a private police
force supervised by the SFPD that is a holdover from San
Franciscos vigilante past—the police have already targeted
their prime suspect: John Holiday proprietor of a run-down
local bar and a friend and client of Dismas Hardy. Hardy
has ample reason to doubt both his client’s guilt and the
evidence conveniently stacked against him. Hardy turns to
Glitsky for help but when Holiday is implicated in the
grisly killings of two more men their pleas fall on
hostile ears. To avoid arrest Holiday turns fugitive and
the police believe three things: that Hardy’s a liar
protecting Holiday that Holiday is a cold-blooded killer
and that Glitsky’s a bad cop on the wrong side of the law.
And as the deadly pursuit for a murderer intensifies Hardy
Glitsky and even their families are directly threatened by
the forces that want to see Holiday brought down. Cut off
from the system that they both served denied justice from
the corridors of power and increasingly isolated at every
turn Hardy and Glitsky face their darkest hour. For when
the law that is meant to shield and protect those closest
to them fails they must look to another more primal law in
order to survive.…