Best Selling Books by Robert Crais

“Elvis Cole provides more fun for the reader than any L.A. private eye to come along in years.”—Joseph Wambaugh WINNER OF THE ANTHONY AND MACAVITY AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL • NOMINATED FOR THE EDGAR AND SHAMUS AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL Meet Elvis Cole, L.A. Private Eye. . . . He quotes Jiminy Cricket and carries a .38. He’s a literate, wisecracking Vietnam vet who is determined to never grow up. When quiet Ellen Lang enters Elvis Cole’s Disney-Deco office, she’s lost something very valuable—her husband and her young son. The case seems simple enough, but Elvis isn’t thrilled. Neither is his enigmatic partner and firepower, Joe Pike. Their search down the seamy side of Hollywood’s studio lots and sculptured lawns soon leads them deep into a nasty netherworld of drugs, sex—and murder. Now the case is getting interesting, but it’s also turned ugly. Because everybody, from cops to starlets to crooks, has declared war on Ellen and Elvis. For Ellen, it isn’t Funtown anymore. For Elvis, it’s just a living . . . He hopes. Praise for The Monkey''s Raincoat “Outstanding characters, tight plot, and scintillating prose style. . . . This fast-paced story speeds Elvis Cole to a chilling, heart-stopping ending.”—Mystery Scene “Is Bob Crais good? Put it this way: if they''re taking you out to put you against the firing squad wall, and you want to enjoy your last moments on earth, pass on the last cigarette and ask for an Elvis Cole novel.”—Harlan Ellison “Far and away the most satisfying private eye novel in years. Grab this one—it''s a winner!”—Lawrence Block “The best private eye novel of the year . . . lots of action; bright, crisp dialogue; and sharply drawn characters.”—The Denver Post “Robert B. Parker has some competition on his hands. . . . Elvis Cole is an appealing character and Crais''s style is fresh and funny.”—Sue Grafton “In Crais, a new star has appeared on the private eye scene—a dazzling first novel.”—Tony Hillerman

A brilliant new crime novel from the beloved, bestselling, and award-winning master of the genre--and Joe Pike''s most perilous case to date. Joe Pike didn''t expect to rescue a woman that day. He went to the bank same as anyone goes to the bank, and returned to his Jeep. So when Isabel Roland, the lonely young teller who helped him, steps out of the bank on her way to lunch, Joe is on hand when two men abduct her. Joe chases them down, and the two men are arrested. But instead of putting the drama to rest, the arrests are only the beginning of the trouble for Joe and Izzy. After posting bail, the two abductors are murdered and Izzy disappears. Pike calls on his friend, Elvis Cole, to help learn the truth. What Elvis uncovers is a twisted family story that involves corporate whistleblowing, huge amounts of cash, the Witness Relocation Program, and a long line of lies. But what of all that did Izzy know? Is she a perpetrator or a victim? And how far will Joe go to find out?

When the son of his long-time girlfriend, Lucy, goes missing, Elvis Cole finds himself encumbered by his personal demons, the dark secrets of his childhood, and long-supressed memories of his service in Vietnam.

Joe Pike and his partner Elvis Cole must solve the murder of an old friend and his entire family in this gripping thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais. When Frank Meyer and his family are executed during a home invasion, the police begin investigating the secret life they''re sure Meyer had. Joe Pike''s on a hunt of his own: to clear his friend''s name, and to punish the people who murdered him. What starts out as a simple trail gets twisted fast by old grudges, double crosses, blood vengeance, and a crime so terrible even Pike and his partner Elvis Cole have no way to measure it.

Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are joined by Suspect heroes LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his German shepherd, Maggie, in this heart-stopping thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais. Elvis Cole and Joe Pike keep their promises. Even if it could get them killed... Elvis Cole is hired to find a woman who’s disappeared, a seemingly ordinary case, until he learns the missing woman is an explosives expert and worked for a Defense Department contractor. Meanwhile, LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his patrol dog, Maggie, track a fugitive to a house filled with explosives—and a dead body. As the two cases intertwine, they all find themselves up against shadowy arms dealers and corrupt officials, and the very woman they promised to save may be the cause of their own deaths.

Struggling to reclaim his career after the devastating murder of his partner eight months earlier, LAPD cop Max Kent is teamed with a traumatized military canine named Maggie who assists Max in an effort to track down his late partner''s killer.

Private investigators Joe Pike and Elvis Cole get double-crossed in this twisty, gripping New York Times bestseller that will have readers on the edge of their seats. When gangbangers shake down the modest owner of a Los Angeles eatery, Joe Pike intervenes. For all intents and purposes, Pike saved Wilson Smith''s life. But for reasons of their own, Smith and his lovely niece, Dru, are curiously resentful. It''s only when Pike''s feelings for the woman deepen that he and his partner, Elvis Cole, discover that Dru and her uncle are not at all who they seem, and everything Pike has learned about them is a lie. But it''s much more than a deception. It''s a trap. And with every new twist it''s proving to be a killer.

Hired to locate the missing wife of Hollywood''s most famous director, L.A.-based sleuth Elvis Cole, along with his partner, finds out that his missing person may also be a dead person.

When single-mother Devon Connor hires 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

*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 politicians, and the vicious business cartels rotting the heart of Los Angeles from within. And when Elvis''s estranged girlfriend, Lucy Chenier, and her son, Ben, return, he learns just how much he has to lose...if he survives. Written with the heart, humor, and relentless suspense for which Crais is famous, Racing the Light delivers Elvis Cole''s most dangerous case yet.

Hired along with Joe Pike to investigate the alleged kidnapping of a wealthy industrialist''s son, Elvis Cole goes undercover to infiltrate a ring of professional border kidnappers only to be abducted himself.

“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

Private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike face a cryptic case and a terrifyingly unpredictable killer in this twisty, edge-of-your-seat thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais. ‘Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are right up there with Harry Bosch and Reacher as must reads for me. Robert Crais has mastered the fine art of storytelling’ James Patterson ‘Robert Crais has crafted another masterpiece, delivering a gripping page-turner and a profound exploration of hidden evils; an edge-of-your-seat reading experience that will stay with you long after the final page’ Ryan Steck ‘Hands down the best book I’ve read this year. Simply incredible … it’s intricately plotted, full of Crais’s trademark wit, and packed with characters that leap off the page. Simply sensational’ M. W. Craven Traci Beller was only thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. Now a super-popular influencer with millions of followers, she finally has the money to hire a new detective to uncover the truth. And that detective is Elvis Cole. Taking on a ten-years-cold missing person case is almost always a losing game, though Elvis quickly picks up a lead in Rancha when he learns that an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter Anya might have a line on the missing man. But when he finds himself shadowed by a deadly gang of vicious criminals, the case flips on its head. Victims become predators, predators become prey, and when everyone is a victim, will it be possible to save them all? Calling on the help of his ex-Marine friend, Joe Pike, Elvis follows Tommy Beller''s trail into the twisted, nightmarish depths of a monstrous evil, even as what he finds tests his loyalty to his clients, and to himself. But the truth must come out, no matter the cost. Elvis must face The Big Empty and see justice done. PRAISE FOR ROBERT CRAIS: ''Robert Crais is my favourite crime writer.'' M. W. Craven ‘The smoothest writing and best storytelling you''ll ever read’ David Baldacci ‘A modern master of crime fiction’ Gregg Hurwitz ‘Robert Crais – and Joe Pike – will have you by the throat’ Independent ''Just keeps getting better and better'' Evening Standard ‘Robert Crais is hands-down the World’s Greatest Crime Fiction Writer’ Huffington Post ‘Expertly delivers his customary modern-day riff on the 1940s hardboiled idiom’ Guardian ‘Cleverly plotted, stylishly written’ Washington Post ‘One of the most reliable storytellers in modern crime fiction’ Daily Mail

From the author of The Last Detective and Hostage, comes a thriller featuring a father searching for vengeance in the City of Angels. But for an ex-con fresh on parole, finding answers in the corruption of the LAPD means asking for help from the person least expecting it: the FBI officer who put him away… Every seasoned criminal knows the two minute rule: the two minutes before the cops show up at the scene of a robbery. Keeping the rule means changing your life, breaking it means a lifetime in jail. But not everyone plays by the rules… When a decisive four minutes put Max Holman in prison, he spent the next decade planning one thing: reconciliation with his estranged son. Determined to put the past behind him, Max sets out on the morning of his parole only to discover his son, a cop, was gunned down in cold blood hours earlier. When the hit is exposed as a revenge killing, Max is determined to track down the murderer—at any cost. From the author that sets the standard of gripping, edgy suspense, The Two Minute Rule delivers all the surprising plot twists and powerful characters that make Robert Crais one of the top crime writers today.

“[A] riveting novel with a vivid sense of place . . . Anyone who enjoys a well-written, fast-paced, noirish thriller with a great aha! moment shouldn’t miss The Forgotten Man.”—The Boston Globe In an alleyway in Los Angeles, an old man, clutching faded newspaper clippings and gasping his last words to a cop, lies dying of a gunshot wound. The victim claims to be P.I. Elvis Cole’s long-lost father—a stranger who has always haunted his son. As a teenager, Cole searched desperately for his father. As a man, he faces the frightening possibility that this murder victim was himself a killer. Caught in limbo between a broken love affair and way too much publicity over his last case, Cole at first resists getting involved with this new case. Then it consumes him. Now a stranger’s terrifying secrets—and a hunt for his killer—give Cole a frightening glimpse into his own past. And he can’t tell if it’s forgiveness or a bullet that’s coming next. . . . “Robert Crais is a crime writer of incredible talent—his novels are not only suspenseful and deeply atmospheric but very hard to put down.”—Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code “A brutal but exhilarating climax.”—USA Today

When a wealthy entrepreneur is accused of murder in Los Angeles, wisecracking private eye Elvis Cole is hired to prove that the evidence was corrupted and becomes suspicious about the defense attorney''s motivations. 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. Detective 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. The sixth book in the Elvis Cole series, Sunset Express is marked by Robert Crais''s dark humor and edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Meet Elvis Cole, L.A. private eye . . . he quotes Jiminy Cricket and carries a .38. He’s a literate, wisecreacking Vietnam vet who is determined never to grow up. The blonde who walked into Cole’s office was the bestlooking woman he’d seen in weeks. The only thing that kept her from rating a perfect “10” was the briefcase on one arm and the uptight hotel magnate on the other. Bradley Warren had lost something very valuable—something that belonged to someone else: a rare thirteenth-century Japanese manuscript called the Hagakure. Just about all Cole knew about Japanese culture he’d learned from reading Shogun, but he knew a lot about crooks—and what he didn’t know his sociopathic sidekick, Joe Pike, did. Together their search begins in L.A.’s Little Tokyo and the nest of notorious Japanese mafia, the yakuza, and leads to a white-knuckled adventure filled with madness, murder, sexual obsession, and a stunning double-whammy ending. For Elvis Cole, it’s just another day’s work. Praise for Stalking the Angel “Stalking the Angel is a righteous California book: intelligent, perceptive, hard, clean.”—James Ellroy “Out on the West Coast, where private eyes thrive like avocado trees, Robert Crais has created an interesting and amusing hero in Elvis Cole.”—The Wall Street Journal “Devotees of the rock ‘em, sock ‘em school should find [Stalking the Angel] tasty.”—The San Diego Union

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 to forget, Talley soon learns that his nightmare has only begun. The hostages are not who they seem, and the home contains secrets that even L.A.’s most lethal and volatile crime lord, Sonny Benza, fears. As Talley tries to hold himself together and save the people inside, the full weight of Benza’s wrath descends on him, putting the police chief and his own family at risk. Soon, all involved are held hostage by the exigencies of fate and the only one capable of diffusing the standoff is the least stable of them all. Hostage is a blistering stand-alone thriller with superb characters in crisis, multistranded plotting, and pitch-perfect Southern California sensibility.

Three years ago, a seattle family ran for their lives in a hail of bullets. Elvis now must pick up the cold pieces of a drama that began that night.

Elvis Cole is back in a desperate fight to clear his name in this spectacular thriller from Robert Crais, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Dangerous Man. 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 a 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 an unwitting accomplice to murder. Captured in photographs that could have only been taken by the murderer, Yvonne Bennett was the fifth of seven victims—two more young women were killed when Byrd walked free. So Elvis can’t help but wonder—did he cause two more young women to lose 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 Byrd and his nightmare album of death. Chasing Darkness is a blistering thriller from the bestselling author who sets the standard for intense, powerful crime writing.

After his acclaimed stand-alone bestseller, THE TWO MINUTE RULE, Robert Crais returns with the eagerly awaited new Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novel. For Elvis and Joe, two of the most beloved characters in crime fiction, the action is getting a little close to home. The dangerous and enigmatic Joe Pike has always defied close examination, but in this breathtaking new thriller, that''s all about to change... Joe Pike owes a bad man a big favour. And the favor is to protect the life of Larkin Conner Barkley, a spoiled rich girl who happens to be a federal witness in a case against the mob. When Pike and the girl come under intense fire, he hatches a plan: disappear into the anonymous underbelly of Los Angeles, turn the table, and hunt down the hunters. Enlisting the help of Elvis Cole, Pike uncovers a web of lies and betrayals; even the cops aren''t who they seem. But as the body count rises, it becomes clear that Pike''s biggest threat may be the girl herself - a vapid soul determined to destroy herself, unless Joe can fill the void in her bruised heart.

They killed the only one who ever cared and now they''re going to pay. A reckoning has come to the City of Angels... Karen Garcia is missing and her father doesn''t trust the cops - he wants someone he knows on the case. So he enlists the help of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. It seems that Karen is the latest victim of a distinctive serial killer and the police are determined to pin her death, and four others, on the witness who found her body. Cole doesn''t believe the man has the guts to murder, and with his partner and the police at each other''s throats, it''s down to him to find the connection that will reveal the killer. But nailing the murderer means choosing between the two people he cares most about...

A reckoning has come to the City of Angels... Karen Garcia is missing and her father doesn''t trust the cops - he wantssomeone he knows on the case - so he enlists the help of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. It seems that Karen is the latest victim of a distinctive serial killer and the police are determined to pin her death, and four others, on the witness who found her body. Cole doesn''t believe the man has the guts to murder, and with his partner and the police at each other''s throats, it''s down to him to find the connection that will reveal the killer. But nailing the murderer means choosing between the two people he cares most about...

El día empieza como cualquier otro en Los Ángeles: el sol quema y los vientos de Santa Ana soplan. Pero para el investigador privado Joe Pike, la ciudad nunca será igual. Cuando una antigua amante de Pike aparece asesinada en las colinas de Hollywood, Joe y Elvis inician, a instancias del padre de la fallecida, una investigación paralela a la de la policía. Sus acciones levantarán las suspicacias de unos antiguos compañeros de Pike y acabarán por enturbiar el asunto hasta límites insospechados.

From the author of RACING THE LIGHT and HOSTAGE In a search for a young woman''s past PI Elvis Cole discovers far more than he expected . . . Hired to uncover the past of Jodi Taylor, an actress in a hit TV show, Elvis leaves his native Los Angeles to head for Louisiana in search of Jodi''s biological parents. But before he can tackle the mystery of the actress''s background, he is up against a whole host of eccentrics, including a crazed Raid-spraying housewife, a Cajun thug who looks like he''s been made out of spare parts, and a menacing hundred-year-old river turtle named Luther. As Elvis learns about the enigmatic actress''s origins, he also discovers the real reason he''s been sent to Louisiana . . .

When a cop''s high school sweetheart asks L.A.-based sleuth Elvis Cole to investigate the doings of her lover, Cole soon finds himself in a world of dirty cops and deadly hijinks.

“Crais is at the top of his game, and Demolition Angel delivers the goods. With a bang. . . . It’s Silence of the Lambs meets Speed. . . . Crais knows how to press all the right buttons in keeping the story line taut and the action, well, explosive.”—San Francisco Chronicle Carol Starkey is struggling to pick up the pieces of her former life as L.A.’s finest bomb squad technician. Fueled with liberal doses of alcohol and Tagamet, she’s doing time as a Detective-2 with LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section. Three years have passed since the event that still haunts her: a detonation that killed her partner and lover, scarred her body and soul, and ended her career as a bomb tech. When a seemingly innocuous bomb call explodes into a charred murder scene, Carol catches the case and embarks on an investigation of a series of explosions that reveal chilling intentions. The bombs are designed expressly to kill bomb technicians. Now, as the one tech who survived the deadliest of blasts, Carol is in for the most perilous fight of her life. . . . Praise for Demolition Angel “Terrific . . . explosive . . . [a] high powered thrill ride.”—The Wall Street Journal “Gripping . . . Crais piles on plot twists . . . gathering the separate threads at the end and igniting them like a string of fireworks.”—People “A powerful, self-contained novel of suspense that has the compactness, velocity, and effectiveness of a well-aimed bullet . . . This is a thriller that works on every level, a pivotal work from a crime novelist operating at the top of his game.”—Los Angeles Times “Fascinating and frighteningly believable . . . Starkey is one of the toughest characters to grace the crowded field of thriller books in a long time.”—USA Today “A flammable techno-thriller with the kind of force that knocks out windows.”—The New York Times Book Review "Packs an explosive punch. Though the pace of the book moves like a quick-burning fuse, Crais still takes the time in Demolition Angel to sketch out some memorable characters: Starkey, haunted and hollow-eyed, covering up her pain with a Bogart-tough demeanor; and John Michael Fowles (aka Mr. Red), a sociopath who gets all sorts of information from the Internet without breaking a sweat. . . . Crais keeps things wound so tight that readers will be getting paper cuts in their rush to finish this one.”—The Denver Post

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