J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
L.A. REQUIEM by Robert Crais
Plenty of readers say its Crais best book. I say its a keeper and 2nd best. It has all the essential ingredients of quality noir but he left it in the oven too long. I was ready for it to end before it did, that said, the extra reading isn't painful.
The story: There are two principal characters in every Elvis Cole book, Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike. They own a P.I. agency in Los Angeles where Cole does most of the investigating and Pike does most of the violence.
In this book an old girl friend of Joe Pike's goes missing. Her daddy, who's richer than God and Hillary Clinton, and a power house in politics, wants Cole and Pike to find her. The cops are pissed off when the boys join the hunt for the woman. She's dead, of course. Two joggers find her body in an odd place that makes Cole and Pike curious about the joggers, who are very nervous, and become the suspects.
I wont reveal the killer but one of the characters is a senior police administrator named Harvey Krantz who despises Joe Pike. Krantz is the stereotypical ass-kissing bureaucrat who'd toss his mom under the bus for a pat on the back from a pol or news anchor. Joe made Harvey shit his pants on one occasion, during a very public conference, and Harvey wants Joe dead. But Harvey must get in line because plenty of folks want Joe Pike dead.
One of these people is a black cop killer. The man is large and crazy, and makes the mistake of assaulting Joe Pike with a knife. Joe all but rips the man's arm off. The place cant be accessed by EMS, and the best they can do for the cop killer is make a tourniquet for the mutilated arm. That's Joe Pike.
The book is a Santa's bag fulla offensive events and revelations, most perpetrated by the police bureaucrats. But there's too much of it. I prefer leaner, cleaner.
Plenty of readers say its Crais best book. I say its a keeper and 2nd best. It has all the essential ingredients of quality noir but he left it in the oven too long. I was ready for it to end before it did, that said, the extra reading isn't painful.
The story: There are two principal characters in every Elvis Cole book, Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike. They own a P.I. agency in Los Angeles where Cole does most of the investigating and Pike does most of the violence.
In this book an old girl friend of Joe Pike's goes missing. Her daddy, who's richer than God and Hillary Clinton, and a power house in politics, wants Cole and Pike to find her. The cops are pissed off when the boys join the hunt for the woman. She's dead, of course. Two joggers find her body in an odd place that makes Cole and Pike curious about the joggers, who are very nervous, and become the suspects.
I wont reveal the killer but one of the characters is a senior police administrator named Harvey Krantz who despises Joe Pike. Krantz is the stereotypical ass-kissing bureaucrat who'd toss his mom under the bus for a pat on the back from a pol or news anchor. Joe made Harvey shit his pants on one occasion, during a very public conference, and Harvey wants Joe dead. But Harvey must get in line because plenty of folks want Joe Pike dead.
One of these people is a black cop killer. The man is large and crazy, and makes the mistake of assaulting Joe Pike with a knife. Joe all but rips the man's arm off. The place cant be accessed by EMS, and the best they can do for the cop killer is make a tourniquet for the mutilated arm. That's Joe Pike.
The book is a Santa's bag fulla offensive events and revelations, most perpetrated by the police bureaucrats. But there's too much of it. I prefer leaner, cleaner.
