Robert Crais - Page 1
First British Edition Orion (2003) |
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The Last Detective
`Five-Two, I’ve got the boy, this is payback’
Elvis Cole is once again coming to terms with his life as a PI on the streets of Los Angeles. He loves his girlfriend, Lucy Chenier, but his constant exposure to the Californian underclasses has stretched their relationship to the limit especially when Cole’s job brings danger too close to her beloved son. The young boy, Ben Chenier, is rapidly becoming the light in both their lives. Perhaps if Elvis cannot be a father to him, at least he could be a mentor.
But then one sunny afternoon, it appears that the demons from Elvis’s past have finally come to visit. Ben is snatched from Cole’s secluded home. The kidnappers call. They don’t want money. They only want retribution. But who from Elvis’s past is capable of such a crime? The only clue is that `Five-Two’ was his unit designation in Vietnam - a life that he has avoided thinking about for over twenty years. But now he must embark on a journey into his own past to try to protect his future.
For it seems that this kidnapper is not only someone who knows him, but someone who owes him . . .
`We can now add the name of Robert Crais to the pantheon of great American writers’ Sunday Times
`If you’re new to Crais, Hostage is a brilliant intro. Read this then read all the others’ Mirror
`Enough plot for three run-of-the-mill novels . . . characterisation as powerful as the logistics . . . Allocate time for reading, you won’t want to leave the book alone for long’ Literary Review
`Crais’s novels are as appealing as chocolate éclairs and just as satisfying, I want to eat them all at once’ Independent On Sunday
`A terrific stand-alone novel . . . what makes Hostage so enjoyable is the way he builds on the basic premise . . . blistering’ Observer
| British Pbk Original - Orion (2002) |
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Three Great Novels
Stalking The Angel
Elvis Cole knows nothing about Japan that he didn’t learn from Shogun, but he knows a lot about crooks, and he knows that the place to start looking for a Japanese crook with a stolen 13th century Japanese manuscript is LA’s Little Tokyo . . .
Lullaby Town
Peter Alan Nelsen, Hollywood’s third most powerful director, wants to find the wife and child he dumped on his ascent to the top. This is a case Elvis Cole could handle in his sleep - until it turns into a nightmare. For Nelsen’s ex-wife is not what Cole expected, and she has a dark, threatening secret…
The Monkey’s Raincoat
Ellen Lang has lost something very valuable - her husband and young son. But this is no routine domestic for Elvis Cole and his sociopath sidekick. They are soon trawling Hollywood’s distinctly non-Disney underbelly of drugs, sex and murder - and before long everyone from cops to starlets to crooks have declared war on the good guys…
`Elvis Cole is the very best kind of hero’ Guardian
`Far and away the most satisfying PI in years. A winner!’ Lawrence Block
`Crais is in a class by himself - he is quite simply the best’ Eric Van Lustbader
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First British Edition Orion (2001) |
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Hostage
Jeff Talley was a good husband, a fine father, and a frontline negotiator with LAPD’s SWAT unit. But the high-stress, unforgiving job took an unbearable toll. After he fails to prevent a despondent father from killing his wife and son and then himself, Talley hits bottom. His own marriage ends, he resigns from SWAT, and takes the chief-of-police job in a sleepy, affluent commuter district fag from the chaos and crime of Los Angeles. Maybe here he can escape his former life.
But Talley’s pursuit of a peaceful small-town existence is interrupted when three young men, fleeing the robbery of a mini-mart, burst into a home, and take the family hostage. Plunged back into the high-pressure world that he has desperately been trying to put behind him, Talley finds his nightmare has barely begun, because this just isn’t any house. It belongs to a brilliant, white-collar criminal who launders money for L.A.’s renegade Mafia family.
And the accountant’s records of the incriminating money trail that lie within will put L.A.’s most lethal and volatile crime lord, Sonny Benza, behind bars for life. As Talley desperately tries to save the innocents inside, the full weight of Benza’s wrath descends on him, putting Talley and his own family at risk. Soon, all involved are held hostage by fate and the only one capable of diffusing the crisis is the least stable of them all.
Praise for Robert Crais
'Swift, colourful, gripping, a real knockout' Dean Koontz
‘Absolutely terrific’ David Baldacci
‘A major American thriller writer’ Val McDermid
‘A terrific writer’ Sue Grafton
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First British Edition Orion (2000) |
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Demolition Angel
Carol Starkey is struggling to pick up the pieces of her former life as L.A.'s finest bomb squad technician. Fuelled by alcohol and Tagamet, she's doing time as a detective with LAPD's Criminal Conspiracy Section. Three years have passed since the explosion that scarred her and killed her partner and lover, David 'Sugar’ Boudreaux. She can't bear to look at herself in the mirror and she hasn't been with another man since.
And then a seemingly innocuous bomb call turns, in a fingerclick, into a charred murder scene. Carol Starkey catches the case and quickly discovers an intent behind a series of explosions that is far more disturbing than one-shot acts of anarchy. Each is designed expressly to kill bomb technicians and now Carol faces the most intense and personal fight of her life; a fight that reaches back three years into her past.
‘Crais has done his research and it shows. But more importantly, he drags the reader into the minds of the characters. Terrific. Take my tip and check out Robert Crais’ Mark Timlin, Independent on Sunday
‘Explosive tale from a real writer. So exactly when does a thriller become a proper novel? When does it break out of that genre ghetto and become something that the literary world feels comfortable about taking seriously? When does Robert Crais stop being a great American crime writer and start being a great American writer? Police officer with tortured past hunts serial killer might sound like standard pulp schlock but in Crais’s hands it becomes something quite different’ Simon Hinde, Sunday Express
`Crais breaks new ground with a nervy, absorbing thriller. A police procedural which fiercely takes off in ways you don’t expect. Harsh, gruelling and utterly compelling. As good as they come’ The Literary Review
`Hot, fast and dangerous . . . a flammable techno-thriller with the kind of force that knocks out windows’ The New York Times
`A high-powered thrill ride’ The Wall Street Journal
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First British Edition Orion (1999) |
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L.A. Requiem
See Review by
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
A reckoning has come to the CITY OF ANGELS
The body of a young woman is discovered in the hills above L.A.. Just another murder? Or a death that will rip apart a family and destroy the friendship between private investigator Elvis Cole and Former police officer Joe Pike?
The dead woman was once Pike's girlfriend. Her Father treats Pike as part of the family and wants he and Cole to find out what happened. But Pike's brutal past and the police investigation point to a different story. Silent, brooding, Joe Pike is the most dangerous man Elvis Cole has ever met. He has killed before, but has he killed again? Cole would trust Pike with his life, but like everyone else, does he really know him? In a world mired in lies and deceit Elvis must find out the truth, and some truths are hard to bear.
L.A. Requiem is Robert Crais' masterpiece; a massive novel
of violence and revenge, of friendship and love, of a city at war with itself. It is a major American thriller.
'Tough, stylish, out of the same drawer as Chandler' Observer
'The wittiest, sharpest crime for a long time' Times
'Elvis Cole is the very best kind of hero' Guardian
'Some of the slickest entertainment around' Mail on Sunday
'Taut narrative with sophisticated compassion and terrific antidotes of wit' Sunday Times
About The Author
Robert Crais was born in Louisiana and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. He is the author of nine previous novels, including the bestsellers, Demolition Angel and the Edgar-nominated L.A. Requiem. He has two additional Edgar nominations and Anthony and Macavity Awards for his Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels. In addition to his novels, Crais has written scripts for L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues. Demolition Angel has been purchased by the producer of Jerry Maguire and is in development as a major motion picture.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
The Last Detective
(Orion,
2003)
Feb 03
Three Great Novels
(Orion Pbk,
2002)
(Elvis Cole)
Hostage
(Orion,
2001)
Demolition Angel
(Orion,
2000)
L.A. Requiem
(Orion,
1999)
Orion Pbk Mar 00
(Elvis Cole)
Indigo Slam
(Orion,
1998)
Orion Pbk May 99
(Elvis Cole)
Sunset Express
(Elvis Cole)
Voodoo River
(Elvis Cole)
Free Fall
(Elvis Cole)
Lullaby Town
(Elvis Cole)
Stalking the Angel
(Elvis Cole)
The Monkey's Raincoat
(Elvis Cole)
The Last Detective
by Robert Crais
