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.

To pay back an old debt, Pike is coerced into protecting Larkin Barkley, a hard-partying young heiress whose life is in danger after a "wrong place wrong time" encounter that quickly escalates and spins out of control. The enemy is shadowy, violent and relentless—but the fierce, focused Pike, one of the strongest characters in modern crime fiction, is equal to the challenge. The breathless pace and rich styling are sure to appeal to readers of hard-boiled fiction in general, but since up to now Pike has mostly remained in the background, some fans of the Elvis Cole series (The Forgotten Man, etc.) may find the explicit picture that emerges of Pike at odds with the image they've constructed for themselves.

Dru Rayne and her uncle fled to L.A. after Hurricane Katrina; but now, five years later, they face a different danger. When Joe Pike witnesses Dru's uncle beaten by a protection gang, he offers his help, but neither of them want it-and neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching them. As the level of violence escalates, and Pike himself becomes a target, he and Elvis Cole learn that Dru and her uncle are not who they seem--and that everything he thought he knew about them has been a lie. A vengeful and murderous force from their past is now catching up to them . . . and only Pike and Cole stand in the way.Amazon.com ReviewT. Jefferson Parker and Robert Crais: Author One-on-OneIn this Amazon exclusive, we brought together blockbuster authors T. Jefferson Parker and Robert Crais and asked them to interview each other.T. Jefferson Parker is one of only three writers to be awarded the Edgar Award for Best Novel more than once and the bestselling author of numerous novels, including Iron River. Parker lives with his family in Southern California.Read on to see T. Jefferson Parker's questions for Robert Crais, or turn the tables to see what Crais asked Parker.Parker: You’ve got a new novel coming out in January of 2011. I haven’t read it yet, so can you tell me a bit about it? Crais: It's a Joe Pike novel. Wasn't supposed to be, so I was taken by surprise, but that's the way Pike is. I planned to follow my last book, The First Rule, with an Elvis Cole novel, but I saw Pike meet a woman in Venice, California, a few moments after Pike saved her uncle from a robbery. Ideas for books come to me that way--I'll see an image. The way Pike looked at her, I knew right away I had to follow their story. So it's a love story, but not your usual love story--it's a Joe Pike love story. As the Kirkus review said, "Prepare the body bags." Parker: Did you have any surprises as you wrote the book? Crais: A character named Daniel. Daniel is a hit man who is after the woman Pike is falling for. He is not your typical hit man. Daniel is very strange dude, and the creepiest character I've ever created. When I wrote his first scene, I sat back, and said, whoa, where did this guy come from? Parker: You write terrific heroes and terrific villains. How do you get inside their heads, learn their methods and tricks? Crais: The answer would scare you. Really. Parker: Can you describe a typical work day? Crais: It's pretty boring. I get up, go for a hike or work out because I like to get the exercise out of the way, then I sit down to work. The work requires discipline because there are so many distractions. Though, honestly, I can't think of a better way to spend my time than hanging out with Joe Pike and Elvis Cole and even strange and dangerous characters like Daniel. Parker: Okay, when all the work is done (is it ever?) what do you do for plain-old, flat-out fun? Crais: Anything outside. Hiking, scuba diving, flying. As a writer, I spend most of my time inside, staring at my computer. When the work is finished, I want OUT. It's like being paroled. (Photo of T. Jefferson Parker © Rebecca Lawson) (Photo of Robert Crais © exleyfotoinc)From Bookmarks MagazineThere’s no doubt that Elvis Cole is a winning character. But critics agreed that Joe Pike, who first abandoned his role as second fiddle to Cole in The Watchman, is a worthy main protagonist in his own right. Stoic, cool, self-possessed, and relentless, Pike not only complements his partner but gives the series greater depth and flavor. Most reviewers felt that The Sentry, like previous novels in the series, has a confident plot, fast-paced action, an insider’s view of a multifaceted Los Angeles, and enough suspense to keep turning the pages. Only a couple faulted the plot and some contrived villains. Though it’s best to start at the beginning of the series, The Sentry is a good place to get to know Pike better, as well as an excellent entry in the series.

Elvis Cole is Back--In a Desperate Fight to Clear his Name... It's fire season, and the hills of Los Angeles are burning. When police and fire department personnel rush door to door in a frenzied evacuation effort, they discover the week-old corpse of an apparent suicide. But the gunshot victim is less gruesome than what they find in his lap: a photo album of seven brutally murdered young women -- one per year, for seven years. And when the suicide victim is identified as a former suspect in one of the murders, the news turns Elvis Cole's world upside down. Three years earlier Lionel Byrd was brought to trial for the murder of a female prostitute named Yvonne Bennett. A taped confession coerced by the police inspired a prominent defense attorney to take Byrd's case, and Elvis Cole was hired to investigate. It was Cole's eleventh-hour discovery of an exculpatory videotape that allowed Lionel Byrd to walk free. Elvis was hailed as a hero. But the discovery of the death album in Byrd's lap now brands Elvis as an unwitting accomplice to murder. Captured in photographs that could only have been taken by the murderer, Yvonne Bennett was the fifth of the seven victims -- two more young women were murdered after Lionel Byrd walked free. So Elvis can't help but wonder -- did he, Elvis Cole, cost two more young women their lives? Shut out of the investigation by a special LAPD task force determined to close the case, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike desperately fight to uncover the truth about Lionel Byrd and his nightmare album of death -- a truth hidden by lies, politics, and corruption in a world where nothing is what it seems to be. Chasing Darkness is a blistering thriller from the bestselling author who sets the standard for intense, powerful crime writing.**

Available now as an ebook for the first time! Prominent restaurateur Teddy Martin is facing charges in his wife's brutal murder. But he's not going down without spending a bundle of cash on his defense. So his hotshot attorney hires P.I. Elvis Cole to find proof that Detective Angela Rossi tampered with the evidence. Rossi needs a way back to the fast track after falling hard during an internal investigation five years ago. But Cole needs to know if she's desperate enough to falsify the case against Martin in order to secure her own position. As Cole and his partner Joe Pike work their way through a tangle of witnesses and an even greater tangle of media, they begin to suspect that it's not the police who are behind the setup.

These short stories are like shots of espresso - best downed in one go and guaranteed to leave the heart racing. Hand-picked by bestselling author Robert Crais, they showcase the best of contemporary crime-writing, from masters of suspense and stars of the future alike. Whether ingenious detective story or hardboiled noir, action-packed thriller or stylish historical mystery, these twenty stand-out stories should form the cornerstone of any crime reader's library.Stories from: Tom Andes, Peter Beagle, K.L. Cook, Jason De Young, Joe Donnelly & Harry Shannon, Kathleen Ford, Mary Gaitskill, Jesse Goolsby, Katherine Hester, Thomas McGuane, Lou Manfredo, Nathan Oates, Gina Paoli, T. Jefferson Parker, Thomas J. Rice, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lones Seiber, Charles Todd, Tim L. Williams, Daniel Woodrell.

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.

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.

It seemed like a simple case—before the bodies starting piling up. Investigator Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, take on the deadliest case of their lives, in the new masterpiece of suspense from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author When single mother Devon Connor hires private investigator Elvis Cole, it's because her troubled teenage son Tyson is flashing cash and she's afraid he's dealing drugs. But the truth is devastatingly different. With two other partners in crime, he's been responsible for a string of high-end burglaries, a crime spree that takes a deadly turn when one of them is murdered and Tyson and his girlfriend disappear. They stole the wrong thing from the wrong man. Determined to get it back, he has hired a team that is smart and brutal, and to even the odds, Cole calls in his friends Joe Pike and Jon Stone. But even they may be overmatched. The hired killers are leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. A few...

Born in Louisiana to a soon-to-be absent father and an alcoholic mother—who tried to drown him in a bathtub when he was three—Clifton Crais spent his childhood perched beside his mother on a too-tall bar stool, living with relatives too old or infirmed to care for him, or rambling on his own through New Orleans, a city both haunted and created by memory.Indeed, it is memory—both elusive and essential—that forms the center of Crais's beautifully rendered memoir History Lessons. In an effort to restore his own, Crais brings the tools of his formal training as a historian to bear on himself and his family. He interviews his sisters and his mother, revisits childhood homes and pores over documentary evidence: plane tickets, postmarks, court and medical records, crumbling photo albums. Probing family lore, pushing past silences and exhuming long-buried family secrets, he arrives, ultimately, at the deepest reaches of the brain. Crais examines the...

A young adult paranormal romance series.An epic journey.If the Seventine are released, will anyone survive?The possession of Abigail’s mate has left their melding bond in tatters.But she has no time to grieve, the deadline still looms to collect the half-Walkers.Together with her friends she ventures to Crais, the red land of the two suns. From the moment they step into the scorching heat, they’re surrounded by rock and death. And with limited time and oxygen they will have no second chances to figure out the secret to this planets survival.And then, when she thinks all hope is lost, the Seventine make her an offer she can’t resist.But will her chance to save Brace be the catalyst that destroys the worlds?

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. **

Dru Rayne and her uncle fled to L.A. after Hurricane Katrina; but now, five years later, they face a different danger. When Joe Pike witnesses Dru's uncle beaten by a protection gang, he offers his help, but neither of them want it -- and neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching them. As the level of violence escalates, and Pike himself becomes a target, he and Elvis Cole learn that Dru and her uncle are not who they seem -- and that everything he thought he knew about them has been a lie. A vengeful and murderous force from their past is now catching up to them... and only Pike and Cole stand in the way.

The organized criminal gangs of the former Soviet Union are bound by what they call the thieves' code. The first rule is this: A thief must forsake his mother, father, brothers, and sisters. He must have no family – no wife, no children. We are his family. If any of the rules are broken, it is punishable by death. Frank Meyer had the American dream – until the day a professional crew invaded his home and murdered everyone inside. The only thing out of the ordinary about Meyer was that – before the family and the business and the normal life – a younger Frank Meyer had worked as a professional mercenary, with a man named Joe Pike. The police think Meyer was hiding something very bad, but Pike does not. With the help of Cole, he sets out on a hunt of his own – an investigation that quickly entangles them both in a web of ancient grudges, blood ties, blackmail, vengeance, double crosses, and cutthroat criminality, and at the heart of it, an act so terrible even Pike and Cole have no way to measure it. Sometimes, the past is never dead. It's not even past.

Larkin Conner Barkley lives like the City of Angels is hers for the taking. Young and staggeringly rich, she speeds through the city during its loneliest hours, blowing through red after red in her Aston Martin as if running for her life. Until out of nowhere a car appears, and with it the metal-on-metal explosion of a terrible accident. Dazed, Larkin attempts to help the other victims. And finds herself the sole witness in a secret federal investigation. For maybe the first time in her life, Larkin wants to do the right thing. But by agreeing to cooperate with the authorities, she becomes the target for a relentless team of killers. And when the U.S. Marshals and the finest security money can buy can’t protect her, Larkin’s wealthy family turns to the one man money can’t buy – Joe Pike. Pike lives a world away from the palaces of Beverly Hills. He’s an ex-cop, ex-marine, ex-mercenary who owes a bad man a favor, and that favor is to keep Larkin alive. The one upside of the job is reuniting with Bud Flynn, Pike’s LAPD training officer, and a man Pike reveres as a father. The downside is Larkin Barkley, who is the uncontrollable cover girl for self-destruction – and as deeply alone as Pike. Pike commits himself to protecting the girl, but when they immediately come under fire, he realizes someone is selling them out. In defiance of Bud and the authorities, Pike drops off the grid with the girl and follows his own rules of survival: strike fast, hit hard, hunt down the hunters. With the help of private investigator Elvis Cole, Pike uncovers a web of lies and betrayals, and the stunning revelation that even the cops are not who they seem. As the body count rises, Pike’s biggest threat might come from the girl herself, a lost soul in the City of Angels, determined to destroy herself unless Joe Pike can teach her the value of life… and love.