The #1 New York Times–bestselling author invites you into a conversation with his two most popular characters—one well-liked and the other, not so much.In this short piece, Robert Crais brings us into the world of quirky and likable Los Angeles PI Elvis Cole and his friend Joe Pike, a survivor and an enigmatic man of few words. The discussion revolves around the choices they've made, the obstacles they've overcome, the things that drive them to be who they are, and the hope that keeps them persevering through the darkness. It's a fresh look at this "superb series" (Kirkus Reviews), and a fascinating visit with its "whip-smart" author (Booklist), who has also written for such television classics as Cagney and Lacey and Hill Street Blues."Cole and Pike make a terrific pair." —Seattle Times

From Publishers Weekly"Efficiency and focus are the keys to success," says L.A. PI Elvis Cole in the fifth (after Free Fall) and best to date of this outstanding series. Although Cole's comment is a little facetious, it's an accurate commentary on his approach here. Popular 36-year-old TV star and adoptee Jodi Taylor hires Cole to identify her birth parents and uncover her medical background. His investigation takes him to Ville Platte, La., where he encounters a lovely attorney, an ancient snapping turtle and Jimmy Ray Rebenack, auto mechanic and part-time investigator who has already uncovered some facts about Jodi that he may turn to his own advantage. Cole's attention to Rebenack worries Milt Rossier, a local crime lord involved in assorted illegal activities, but Cole cares only about his own investigation?until one of Rossier's thugs murders an old man for protecting a small child. Finally, Cole calls on Joe Pike, his silent and deadly partner, to help put a stop to Rossier's exploitive pursuits and expose the old crime that threatens Jodi Taylor's career. Cole has never been wittier, more passionate or more violently committed to his clients. Crais makes not a single misstep here. Author tour. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalOn a trip to Louisiana in order to locate the biological parents of a popular television actress, private eye Elvis Cole runs into more than he bargained for, including a cast of memorable characters. From the author of Lullaby Town (Bantam, 1992).Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. SUMMARY:Robert Crais has established Elvis Cole, his wisecracking private eye with a tough exterior but a soft heart, in the consciousness of mystery readers and reviewers everywhere. In Voodoo River, Elvis Cole returns in his most exciting adventure yet. Hired to uncover the past of Jodi Taylor, an actress in a hit television series, Elvis leaves his native Los Angeles to journey to deepest Louisiana to search for Jodi's biological parents. Soon he discovers the real reason he's been sent there - but not before run-ins with an amazing cast of characters, including a crazed, Raid-spraying housewife; a Cajun thug who looks like he's been built out of spare parts; and a menacing, hundred-year-old river turtle named Luther.

SUMMARY:It is fire season, and the hills of Los Angeles are burning. Fire Department personnel rush to evacuate the inhabitants, and find the days-old corpse of a middle-aged recluse who apparently committed suicide. Clutched in his lap is a photo album containing photographs of seven young women who have been murdered, each photograph was taken only moments after the women were killed. One murder per year for seven years, their bodies found in different parts of the city. LAPD homicide detectives had never connected the seven murders. But now with the discovery of the "death album" these seven murders have been linked, and the news for Elvis Cole is bad... Only one suspect had been charged in any of those cases, that being for the murder of victim #4. LAPD and the LA County District Attorney had a recorded confession by the suspect and believed him to be the murderer. But, with evidence supplied by Elvis Cole, in the end he walked free. That suspect was the suicide now discovered in the fire, Elliot Martin. Did Cole's action three years ago free a killer to commit more murders? Did Elvis cost three young women their lives?

*On Reader's Digest's list of "30 new books we can't wait to read in 2022"* Private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike are back on the case in this brilliant new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais.        Adele Schumacher isn't a typical worried mom. When she hires Elvis to find her missing son, a controversial podcaster named Josh Shoe, she brings a bag filled with cash, bizarre tales of government conspiracies, and a squad of professional bodyguards. Finding Josh should be simple, but Elvis quickly learns he isn't alone in the hunt—a deadly team of mysterious strangers are determined to find Josh and his adult film star girlfriend first.        With dangerous secrets lurking behind every lead, Elvis needs his friend Joe Pike more than ever to uncover the truth about Josh, corrupt...

The explosive new masterpiece of suspense from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author.LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well. Eight months ago, a shocking nighttime assault by unidentified men killed his partner Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode. He is unfit for duty—until he meets his new partner.Maggie is not doing so well, either. A German shepherd who survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing explosives before losing her handler to an IED, her PTSD is as bad as Scott’s.They are each other’s last chance. Shunned and shunted to the side, they set out to investigate the one case that no one wants them to touch: the identity of the men who murdered Stephanie.  What they begin to find is nothing like what Scott has been told, and the journey will take them both through the darkest moments of their own personal hells. Whether they will make it out again, no one can say.ReviewPraise for SUSPECT“The most multifaceted and appealing new protagonist in crime fiction this year just may turn out to be a dog—and a hard-boiled dog, to boot… A read-in-one-sitting thriller."--Booklist (starred review)Praise for Robert Crais"Robert Crais is hands-down the World’s Greatest Crime Fiction Writer, and that’s no joke” --Huffington Post“Most crime novel fans have a shortlist of authors they will buy on name recognition alone. If Robert Crais isn’t on that list, he should be. His novels get better with every new book” --Portland OregonianAbout the AuthorRobert Crais is the author of many New York Times bestsellers, most recently Taken, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and The Sentry. He lives in Los Angeles.

The bestselling author of Demolition Angel and L.A. Requiem returns with his most intense and intricate thriller yet. As the Los Angeles Times said, Robert Crais is "a crime writer operating at the top of his game." His complex heroes and heroines, his mastery of noir atmosphere, and his brilliant, taut plots have catapulted him into the front rank of a new breed of thriller writers. Hostage proves his earlier success was no fluke. It's an unstoppable read.An ex-con with delusions of grandeur and his tagalong brother unwittingly team up with a psychopath one wrong word away from meltdown. When their late afternoon joyride turns into a random act of violence, they take a family hostage in the affluent bedroom community of Bristo Camino. Enter Chief of Police Jeff Talley, a stressed-out former LAPD SWAT negotiator who is hiding from his past. Plunged back into the high-pressure world that he desperately wants...

Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are joined by Suspect heroes LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his German shepherd, Maggie, in the new heart-stopping thriller from #1 New York Times-bestselling author Robert Crais. Loyalty, commitment, and the fight for justice have always driven Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. If they make a promise, they keep it. Even if it could get them killed.             When Elvis Cole is secretly hired to find a grief-stricken mother, he's led to an ordinary house on a rainy night in Echo Park.  Only the house isn't ordinary, and the people hiding inside are a desperate fugitive and a murderous criminal with his own dangerous secrets.             As helicopters swirl overhead, Scott and Maggie track the fugitive to this same house, coming face-to-face with Mr. Rollins, a killer who leaves behind a brutally murdered body and enough explosives to destroy the neighborhood.  Scott is now the only person who can identify him, but Mr. Rollins has a rule:  Never leave a witness alive.      For all of them, the night is only beginning.      Sworn to secrecy by his client, Elvis finds himself targeted by the police even as Mr. Rollins targets Maggie and Scott.  As Mr. Rollins closes in for the kill, Elvis and Joe join forces with Scott and Maggie to follow a trail of lies where no one is who they claim -- and the very woman they promised to save might get them all killed. **

Amazon.com ReviewMore than 10 years ago, I was shocked to learn that some puerile piece of fluff had won the Edgar for Best Paperback Original, when it was so obvious to me and virtually everyone else in the Western Hemisphere that the award should have gone to The terrific Elvis Cole series has grown through the years, each book better than the last, but nothing prepared me for the quantum leap (yes, it's a cliché, but it belongs here) that Crais has made with L.A. Requiem. It's not as funny as the other books in the series, but it's a beautifully plotted detective story, rich with police procedure, and it will keep even the most sophisticated reader at sea right until the end. And that's what elevates this book to the level of literature. This one is more about Joe Pike, Elvis's silent sidekick, than it is about Elvis. We learn, through Pike's own eyes, how his childhood made him the way he is today. It's also about a friendship so strong that it threatens Elvis's relationship with his beloved Lucy. It is a tender but dark book--a serial killer book--but it doesn't attempt to outgross the other serial killer books on the shelf. It is funny at times and chilling at other times, making it one of the rare books that can't help but linger in the memory long after it's been read and put away. --Otto PenzlerFrom Publishers WeeklyIn his eighth book about wise-cracking Los Angeles private detective Elvis Cole, Crais has expanded his narrative reach and broadened his characters' horizons to produce a mature work that deserves to move him up a notch or twoAinto Parker or Connelly country. He's done this by focusing on Joe Pike, Cole's tough and hitherto totally enigmatic partner. It's Pike who breaks in on Cole's reunion with Lucy Chenier, his lawyer/broadcaster lover who has just moved from New Orleans, to ask for Elvis's help in tracking down the missing daughter of a rich and powerful Hispanic businessman. When the girl turns up murdered in Griffith Park, it's Pike who gives a nerdy medical examiner valuable assistance; and when it turns out that the girl's death is linked to several other murders, it's Pike who is charged with killing the chief suspect. Through flashbacks to Joe's past life as an abused child, a highly motivated teenage soldier and an L.A. cop fighting to keep a corrupt partner from destroying his family, we learn more about Pike than we did in the seven previous Cole books. This new focus also allows Crais to keep Elvis's often annoying throwaway lines to a minimumAalthough more pruning could have been done with no loss of flavor. The book's scope is wide enough to include many other memorable characters, especially a rough-edged, vulnerable police officer named Samantha Dolan, plus a choice of plausible villains. There may be one too many metaphoric descriptions attempting to link aspects of the L.A. landscape with the moods and deeds of its inhabitants, but overall Crais seems to have successfully stretched himself the way another Southern California writerARoss MacdonaldAalways tried to do, to write a mystery novel with a solid literary base. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

retailAvailable for the first time as an ebook!Life in the California sun suits Elvis Cole--until the day a fifteen-year-old girl and her two younger siblings walk into his office. Then everything changes.Three years ago, a Seattle family ran for their lives in a hail of bullets. Hired by three kids to find their missing father, Elvis now must pick up the cold pieces of a drama that began that night. What he finds is a sordid tale of high crimes and illicit drugs. As clues to a man's secret life emerge from the shadows, Elvis knows he's not just up against ruthless mobsters and some very angry Feds. He's facing a storm of desperation and conspiracy--bearing down on three children whose only crime was their survival...

Hired by popular television star Jodie Taylor to find the biological parents who gave her up for adoption thirty-six years earlier, Los Angeles private eye Elvis Cole becomes suspicious when other investigators searching for Jodie's parents are killed. Elvis Cole returns in his most exciting adventure yet. Hired to uncover the past of Jodi Taylor, an actress on a hit TV series, Elvis travels to Louisiana to search for Jodi's biological parents. Soon he discovers the real reason that he's been sent there—but not before he has run-ins with a crazed housewife, a Cajun thug and a 100-pound river turtle named Luther.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Forgotten Man, L.A. Requiem, and The Last Detective returns with an intense, edge-of-your seat suspense novel. The story begins as bank robber Max Holman is leaving jail, having served his nine-year sentence. He's clean and sober, and the only thing on his mind is reconciliation with his estranged son, who is, ironically, a cop. Then the devastating news: his son and three other uniformed cops were gunned down in cold blood in the LA warehouse district the night before Holman's release. Max's one rule was no violence and throughout his career as a bank robber, he never crossed that line. But now, with the loss of his son and shut out from any information on the case since the police are not interested in keeping ex-cons informed, Max decides there is only one thing to do: avenge his son's death. But he soon finds himself in a web of deceit and corruption as it becomes apparent that the supposed killer could not have murdered his son.

L.A. private eye Elvis Cole is hired by popular television star Jodie Taylor to delve into her past and identify the biological parents who gave her up for adoption thirty-six years before. Cole's assignment is to find out their biological history and report back. It seems all too clear cut. But when he gets to Louisiana and begins his search, he finds that there's something much darker going on. Other people are also looking for Taylor's parents, and some are ending up dead. And when Cole realizes that his employer knew more than she was telling, Voodoo River becomes a twisting tale of identity, secrets, and murder.