Treasure Hunt [Hardcover]

The Hunt Club, a private detective firm in San Francisco headed by Wyatt Hunt is holding on to solvency by a thread. In fact it's a stretch to call it a firm. The employee roster consists of Wyatt a licensed detective... Mickey Dade who does office work and "go-fer" assignments while pursuing his real dream of becoming a chef... and an empty chair that used to be inhabited by Mickey's sister Tamara... who is M.I.A. and "shell- shocked" in the aftermath of her former boyfriend being a murderer in a prior episode by this author. After Wyatt tells Mickey that he's going to have to shut down The Hunt Club in the near future... Mickey decides he'll attempt to take fate into his own hands and find the soon to be defunct detective firm some new business. The following amalgamation of serendipitous circumstances may be a little too convenient for some readers to accept. Mickey while walking by a lagoon comes across the dead body of Dominic Como who "had either founded or sat on the boards of no fewer than six major charities in San Francisco". It turns out that Dominic who was taking in exorbitant sums of money from government agencies... public donations... protection rackets... moving companies... rehab facilities... and more... was murdered. It so happens that Mickey who shares a small apartment with his aforementioned "shell-shocked" sister along with their grandfather Jim Parr... who lo and behold used to be a personal driver for Dominic. After stumbling across the body Mickey is interviewed by local reporters and when he says he works for The Hunt Club a detective agency they think he's a detective and his face... name... and company... are plastered on the evening news. So the moribund detective agency gets free publicity which creates a bevy of potential client activity. Mickey a hertofore cooking class student and office "go-fer" comes up with a plan to have Dominic's charitable and business foundations help create a reward "kitty" that would channel leads from people who wouldn't want to talk to the police to The Hunt Club... and the foundations would pay The Hunt Club for its services. The person that must give final approval on this proposal is Len Turner "a lawyer, pretty much at the top of the charity food chain."

Len approves the proposal based on the understanding that all evidence and info uncovered will be cleared with him and he'll decide what goes public. Wyatt Hunt desperate for financial survival agrees to the semi-ludicrous arrangement. What follows is the equivalent of a "MURDER SHE WROTE" or "MATLOCK" episode. The rest of the book is investigative foot work with the usual suspects... drivers... department heads... scorned lovers... temperamental wife... and loony tipsters such as "the balloon lady" who says she saw Dominic's body dropped from a blimp into the lagoon... all hoping for a large reward.

There is very little physical action and unless you're a hard core fan of Julia Child or Wolfgang Puck... you may be stymied at times by too many intricacies regarding the simple task of making and eating a meal.

This novel is written in Lescroarts trademark writing style: crisp, clear, and fun to read. the glimpses into the life of San Francisco the book offers are priceless. However, the author offers a cast of characters that it's impossible to care about. Wyatt Hunt is a cartoonish superman-type detetcive agency owner. His smugness is extremely annoying. Mickey is his bumbling protegee who falls in love with a very nasty woman. It seems like Lescroart wanted Mickey's love interest to be a positive character but she is in truth nothing other than disgusting. Mickey's drama queen sister Tamara completes the cast of extremely annoying characters that populate this book.

I will not read another Wyatt Hunt novel. They are a waste of time. Lescroart should go back to his Hardy/Glitsky series.

Any writer could have written this one. The characters are one-dimensional, and let's face it, who cares about them. The Diz-Abe books are chock full of real characters who we have come to know and support in their trials and tribulations. That is why we remember them from one novel to the next, and most of us had trouble remembering these folks in Treasure Hunt. Please, John, go back to the style that we expect and for which you are so admired.