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Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:�Terrific entertainment . . . A powerful portrait of Los Angeles in our time: swift, colorful, gripping, a real knockout.��Dean Koontz The day starts like any other in L.A. The sun burns hot as the Santa Ana winds blow ash from mountain fires to coat the glittering city. But for private investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, is dead, brutally murdered with a gun shot to the head. Now Karen's powerful father calls on Pike (a former cop) and his partner, Elvis Cole, to keep an eye on the LAPD as they search for his daughter's killer�because in the luminous City of Angels, everyone has secrets, and even the mighty blue have something to hide. But what starts as a little procedural hand-holding turns into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. For a dark web of conspiracy threatens to destroy Pike and Cole's twelve-year friendship�if not their lives. And L.A. just might be singing their dirge. Praise for L.A. Requiem �One of the best crime novels I've ever read. Absolutely terrific!��David Baldacci �Darker, denser, deeper, and more satisfying than anything he�s written before.��The Denver Post �[A] whodunit with salsa and soul . . . [Crais] keeps his plot pounding along.��People.… (more)
User reviews
Their cases are always intense, but this time it's personal. Karen Garcia, an ex-girlfriend of Pike's, with whose father he's still very close, has disappeared. The police won't even think about an investigation until she's been missing for more than the single day it's been, and at the request of the father the guys begin searching for Karen. Mere hours into their involvement, though, the young woman is found murdered; her father, a former gangbanger turned businessman and behind-the-scenes political mover, pulls strings to get the two private investigators allowed on the official police investigation.
They soon discover that something's not quite right. The police seem to be lacking a certain urgency, and it's not long before Cole and Pike figure out that her murder is the fifth in a series of murders with similar signatures...but no apparent connection or similarity among the victims. And, not only is there an apparent serial killer working the City of Angels, but the officer in charge of the task force is one who bears a deep, abiding, vengeful grudge against Pike, who was a police officer for several years after leaving the Marines.
Whew.
In addition to Elvis Cole's usual snappy first person narrative there are flashbacks, told in the more distancing third person, to Pike's past. We see Pike's turbulent childhood, complete with a drunken and abusive father and a beaten down, ineffectual mother; his entrance into an elite recon unit of the Marines and his time in Vietnam; and pictures of his time with the LAPD, which was short and not at all sweet.
The novel's action is relentless and often painful. Elvis Cole's relationship with lawyer Lucy Chenier, which is blossoming as it heads into a new phase, is severely tested, perhaps never to recover. More than one person central to the story is seriously injured; some are killed. Some trusts are stretched nearly to the breaking point. But Elvis Cole has the last word, and he remains cautiously optimistic:
"When I first came here, I fell in love with this place. During the day, Los Angeles is a great playful puppy of a town, anxious to please and quick with a smile. At night, it becomes a treasure chest filled with magic and dreams. All you have to do is chase your dreams. All you need is the magic. All you have to do is survive, but it's that way anywhere."
The book opens with the murder of Karen Garcia, who we soon learn was Joe's ex-girlfriend from years past. Joe, the always serious, taciturn,
Throughout the book we see in flashback vignettes that we learn have shaped Joe and made him who he is today.
All in all one of the most satisfying of the Cole/Pike novels if for no other reason than we begin to glimpse the inner workings of Pike.
This is my first Crais and the seventh in the series starring Elvis Cole and his mysterious and mercenary partner, Joe Pike. Pike's former girlfriend, Karen Garcia, has been shot dead while jogging - I have always maintained that jogging is hazardous, here's another reinforcement. Pike is an enigma; he speaks as little as possible, yet reeks of dangerous potential. The point-of-view shifts from the mysterious serial killer - Karen's death is merely the random fifth in a series of killings all using a bleach bottle as the silencer for the gun - to Pike's background (he had a miserable childhood, became a sensational independent soldier in Vietnam, and shot his partner while a policemen - all tidbits told in such a tantalizing way as to raise one's suspicion that he may be the killer).
When a second killing occurs, much of the evidence points to Joe and he is arrested. Samantha Dolan, the Robbery-Homicide cop working on the case, falls for Elvis; that ticks off Lucy Chenier, Elvis's girlfriend and attorney, who is already very angry because Elvis's loyalties seem to be with Joe at crucial moments,rather than with her. The tension rachets up several notches, leavened by Elvis's unvoiced, hilariously sarcastic wisecracks.
Excellent, hard to put down novel.
Cole sets off to prove his partner's innocence and eventually convinces a female detective, Samantha Dolan to help him. This costs her her position in the crack Robbery-Homicide Squad. She also falls in love with Elvis which complicates His relationship with Lucy Chenier who has just moved to LA to be close to him.
Eventually Joe escapes custody to search for the real killer. Dolan & Cole figure out who the killer is but too late to stop a shoot out at which both Cole & Pike are seriously wounded. Dolan was killed earlier in a booby trapped house. Even though they now know who the killer was for he is now dead too, the police still pursue Joe Pike because of the killing of Wozniak even though Wozniak's wife now knows her husband committed suicide because he could no longer handle the job.
I think this is the best Elvis Cole novel I have read so far and a bonus is that we learn more about Joe Pike's background.
These two complaints have jaundiced my
Elvis is asked to investigate the disappearance of an old girl friend of Joe Pike. Things escalate and Joe quickly becomes a suspect in the affair.
Interesting new character introduced (I cheated, having read the next book ages ago--it must have been on sale.)
Everything piles up one thing on top of the other until a climatic conclusion, as usual eventuates.
Some interesting back story developed.
In this novel we learn the Joe Pike back-story as he moves from a caricature to a more fully fleshed out
Eventually Pike is charged with the murder of the man suspected of killing Garcia and Cole and Pike work to find the actual murderer and bring him to justice.
Crais has a hard time with female characters; making them a combination of smart, tough, angry, sexy.
Plot was weak.