The Last Detective FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
L.A. private eye Elvis Cole is back, and this time crime strikes very close to home -- Cole's canyon home, in fact, where's he's babysitting his girlfriend, Lucy's, ten-year-old son, Ben. One moment, Ben's playing with his Game Freak, a handheld shoot-'em-up game that makes enough noise to be heard halfway to the moon. The next moment, there's an eerie silenceﾽand Cole can't find the kid anywhere. Just as Elvis is reassuring Lucy, there's a chilling phone call: Ben has been kidnapped, supposedly in retaliation for a betrayal in Vietnam that took place a generation before the boy was even born. Cole remembers his time in 'Nam -- often all too well -- but he doesn't recall betraying anyone. As the police check out Rangers from Cole's old unit, perps from his past cases, and the possibility this was all a prank-gone-wrong, staged by Ben or even by Cole himself, Cole's own investigation gradually uncovers some very troubling facts. It seems there's more than one crime and more than one villain -- and it's becoming increasingly clear that the true betrayal wasn't in the past but here and now by someone very close to Cole. The Last Detective is a real page-turner, with a major cat-and-mouse ending. Sue Stone
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Elvis Cole's relationship with attorney Lucy Chenier is strained. When she moved from Louisiana to join Elvis in Los Angeles, she never dreamed that violence would so easily touch her life. But then the unthinkable happens. While Lucy is away on business and her ten-year-old son, Ben, is staying with Elvis, Ben disappears without a trace. Desperate to believe that the boy has run away, Elvis soon receives a phone call that suggests a much darker scenario." "Joining forces with his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, Elvis frantically searches for Ben with the help of LAPD Detective Carol Starkey, even as Lucy's wealthy, oil-industry ex-husband attempts to wrest away control of the investigation. Amid the maelstrom of personal conflicts, Elvis and Joe are forced to consider a troubling and recurring possibility - that Ben's disappearance is not random, but is connected to a terrible long-held secret from Elvis Cole's past." Venturing deep inside a complex psyche, Robert Crais explores Elvis's search for family - the military that embraced him as a troubled adolescent, his rock-solid partnership with Pike, and his floundering relationship with Lucy - as he races the clock in his search for Ben.
SYNOPSIS
Elvis Cole is back...
With his acclaimed bestsellers, Hostage (a New York Times Notable Book) and Demolition Angel, Robert Crais drew raves for his unstoppable pacing, edgy characterizations, and cinematic prose.
FROM THE CRITICS
The Los Angeles Times
The Last Detective is one more Robert Crais elegy for Los Angeles. — Eugen Weber
Publishers Weekly
After two bestselling stand-alone novels (Demolition Angel and Hostage), Crais has returned to his popular Elvis Cole series with a thrilling action-adventure yarn. The private eye's eighth and last crusade against evil, L.A. Requiem, explored the events, from childhood on, that turned his sidekick, Joe Pike, into a hardened killing machine (albeit a moral one). Now it's Elvis's turn to be analyzed, as he tries to rescue his beloved Lucy Chenier's son, Ben, whose kidnapping by ruthless mercenaries apparently was prompted by something in the sleuth's past. With its relentless pacing, large cast, flashbacks to Elvis's unhappy youth and war experiences and constant shifting from first- to third-person narration, the book poses significant problems for an audio interpreter. Daniels, one of the format's prime performers, has given voice to Elvis and Joe before, on the less complex Lullaby Town and Free Fall (both Brilliance titles). He takes the present challenge in stride, using his own voice for the Elvis-narrated sections and an appropriate just-the-facts approach to the straightforward sentences in the third person passages. Just as deftly, he distinguishes the cultured Lucy from the rougher-edged policewoman Carole Starkey (the author's Demolition Angel in a surprise cameo); finds an assortment of Louisiana accents for Lucy's ex-husband and his bayou crew; and, most stirringly, treats Pike to a hardboiled whisper Clint Eastwood might mistake for his own. Crais is notoriously protective of his Elvis novels, reputedly rejecting the wealth of Hollywood rather than trust others with his creations. He's got nothing to worry about here. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Forecasts, Jan. 27). (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Elvis Cole's domesticity is shattered when ten-year-old Ben, son of his girlfriend Lucy, disappears one afternoon while Elvis is babysitting. Worse, a ransom note arrives, sounding less interested in money than in destroying Elvis for atrocities he allegedly committed in Vietnam. Then Lucy's rich ex-husband, Richard, shows up with a couple of goons, determined to solve the kidnapping on his own. Crais's ninth Cole novel (the first since 1997) features sharply drawn characters, including lethal, silent sidekick Joe Pike, and detective Carol Starkey, visiting from Crais's nonseries Demolition Angel. Reader James Daniels maintains tension admirably, as Elvis and Carol follow up on the merest clues, getting some lucky breaks along the way and tracking some truly bad bad guys. When the solution comes, it requires a huge suspension of disbelief, but listeners will be so involved, they may not care. Recommended.-John Hiett, Iowa City P.L. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
AudioFile
Robert Crais not only weaves an engaging thriller, his sentences are almost lyrical. It's no wonder James Daniels was chosen to perform this latest in the Elvis Cole series. His unusually emotive voice and sensitive style sweep the listener into Crais's story. In this one, Cole is in hot water again. It's not enough that his relationship with his girl is shaky; her son has been kidnapped from right under Cole's nose. As Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, search frantically for the youth, they begin to unravel a complex conspiracy. Daniels's delivery keeps listeners on the edge. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
Before he hit the big time with Hostage (2001), Crais made his name with seven novels about wisecracking but ever tougher L.A. shamus Elvis Cole. Now his old heroﾽs overheated return suggests that somebody canﾽt go home again. Minutes before Elvisﾽs ladylove, lawyer-turned-TV commentator Lucy Chenier, returns from five days on the road, her son Ben, whoﾽs been bonding with Elvis during his momﾽs absence, is snatched from under his hostﾽs nose. The scant evidence points to a team of professional mercenaries, killers for hire—exactly the sort of guys Lucyﾽs ex, Baton Rouge gas exec Richard Chenier, has repeatedly warned Lucy her new beau attracts—so itﾽs no wonder that Richard, jumping a jet out to the coast, arrives with smoke pouring from his ears and a trio of his own alleged experts in tow: a pair of retired New Orleans cops and Leland Myers, Richardﾽs own security chief. The obligatory squabbles about whose fault the kidnapping is, who ought to be first up in the investigation, and who ought to just stay out of the way is notable mainly for Elvisﾽs ease in getting L.A. detective Carol Starkey, visiting from another Crais stand-alone (Demolition Angel, 2000), to side with him and his old partner Joe Pike, whoﾽs manfully struggling to recover from the wounds he suffered in Elvisﾽs last outing (L.A. Requiem, 1999) and his shame at running from a bear (donﾽt ask). The detective work, when Elvis has a chance for it, is sound and the plot twisty enough, but thatﾽs no longer enough for Crais, who ups the ante with flashbacks to Elvisﾽs neglected childhood and Vietnam service, gives his villains the world-class bad-guy credentials youﾽd expect from an Austin Powers movie, and stagesaction scenes so quick that "all of it happened in milliseconds, or maybe even faster." Elvis on steroids. Strictly for the Russian-judge contingent.
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