The day starts like any other in Los Angeles with the sun burning hot as the Santa Ana winds blow. But for private investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, has been brutally murdered with a gunshot to the head, and her powerful father has called on Pike and his partner, Elvis Cole, to keep an eye on the LAPD's investigation. In the City of Angels everyone has secrets, and what starts as procedural hand-holding turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse.
L.A. Requiem: Elvis Cole Series, Book 8 (Elvis Cole Novels)
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Le richissime industriel Frank Garcia est anéanti par le meurtre de sa fille Karen, qui a eu lieu près de la retenue de Lake Hollywood à Los Angeles. Il fait appel à son vieil ami Joe Pike, l'ancien amant de Karen, qui a monté avec Elvis Cole une agence de détectives privés. Grâce à ses relations, Frank obtient du RHD, la brigade d'élite des policiers de la ville, que les deux hommes suivent pour son compte le travail des enquêteurs. Mais Joe, qui appartenait au LAPD, la police de Los Angeles, est haï par ses anciens collègues. Ils lui reprochent d'être responsable de la mort, quelques années auparavant, d'Abel Wozniak, son équipier de l'époque, lors de l'arrestation d'un pédophile. Rien n'est fait pour aider les deux privés, et certainement pas la haine tenace de Krantz, responsable de la brigade. Mais Joe et Elvis, qui connaissent les ficelles du métier, recueillent des informations que semblent vouloir étouffer le RHD. Les circonstances de l'enquête obligeront Elvis à plonger dans le passé de son ami pour trouver les réponses à ses questions : Joe est-il coupable ou tout simplement victime d'une vengeance machiavélique ?
Robert Crais fait preuve d'un grand talent en alliant une parfaite maîtrise du suspens, un récit à plusieurs voix, souvent drôle malgré la noirceur de l'intrigue, des héros attachants, troublants mais jamais manichéens – notamment le personnage de Joe Pike, poursuivi par les démons de son passé. Un thriller d'une belle intensité dramatique ! --Claude Mesplède
From Publishers Weekly
In 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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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First Sentence
Uniformed LAPD Officer Joe Pike could hear the banda music even with the engine idling, the a.c. jacked to meat locker, and the two-way crackling callout codes to other units. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Uniformed LAPD Officer Joe Pike could hear the banda music even with the engine idling, the a.c. jacked to meat locker, and the two-way crackling callout codes to other units. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Archmaker
Format:Mass Market Paperback
A friend's daughter is missing and Joe Pike asks his friend Elvis Cole to help him find her. Along the way we discover that the missing girl and Joe Pike had once been an item and that is just the beginning of what author Robert Crais reveals about the enigmatic, silent partner to his gregarious wise-ass hero, Elvis Cole.
It was time in the series to do something more than another fast-paced, wise-crack laden, plot-driven Cole/Pike adventure. Not that the novel is slow and humorless, but here Crais has decided to round out Joe Pike, giving him more background and history to explain some of his mystery. It's a cracking good story at that.
Adding depth to his characters will only add to the future novels, and he does the same for Elvis Cole in The Last Detective. Plus here we get the horny SID criminologist, John Chen, thrown in, and a complex and nasty mystery behind it all.
Well worthwhile for fans of the series. 5 stars for them.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Victoria
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I stumbled upon his Elvis Cole series by accident but after reading Indigo Slam I immediately bought the rest of his books and wasn't dissapointed. This one is definately one of the best in the bunch because it goes more in depth about Joe Pike and his past and I always liked him. He is one cool customer. I have to say that at times, Elvis's character is a little too wussy for my taste but he is definately likeable and this novel just like most of the others is a page turner.
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Without a doubt, L.A. Requiem is the finest thing Robert Crais has written, and I consider that high praise, as he is one of my favorite authors.
If you have been reading his books, Requiem will be a great payoff for you, since it brings to a head much of what has been building in the previous six Elvis Cole novels. If this is your first Crais book, rest assured you will like this book enough to want to go back and read the rest.
Despite Joe Pike being the character the plot is about, Elvis still remains central. Nearly every page is viewed through his eyes. Tha pages that deviate, when we see and learn about Joe's past, are among the most interesting in the book. Also, without giving too much away, the scenes with the killer are most revealing and in some ways creepy. Elvis remains aloof, but genuine, a much better protaganist than the typical Superman fantasy. Elvis can't beat up fifteen ninjas, pull a gun out of an extremity, shoot a sniper from 300 feet, and then anounce he has, in his head, completed the DNA test and found the real killer.
The one problem I would say I have with this book is it gives up too much. Too many things happen and when it is all said and done, in many ways, Crais has ruined the series. The follow-up, The Last Detective, felt lacking after the carnage of this entry, naked without much of the mystery and buildup. Thankfully, it still tackled a major piece of character development, but left the series with absolutely no steam for the next book. It is possible you could simply read the series and consider "Detective" the final chapter.
Also worth checking out is Crais's Hostage, soon to be made into a movie by Bruce Willis. It is a great stand-alone novel.
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4.5 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Elvis Is Much Better Than Presley!
This was my first Elvis Cole book. Wow. Others have done a fine job of describing the story line for LA Requiem, and there's nothing more I can add to what's been said that will... Read more
Published on Mar 4 2004 by Mo Addams
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good, but I hope that Crais is capable of more
There is a lot to like about this book, and it is certainly better than most. But something about Crais' voice occasionally doesn't ring quite true, and keeps him from being one... Read more
Published on Mar 2 2004 by "ake465"
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elvis in the real world...
I agree with many here who feel that L.A. Requiem is the best of the Elvis Cole series, but I not sure yet how I feel about that. Read more
Published on Feb 4 2004 by J. Minkey
5.0 out of 5 stars
Master Storytelling
I've read all of Robert Crais' work in the last few months, but had put off reading L. A. Requiem and The Last Detective because I knew the relationship between Lucy and Cole was... Read more
Published on Jan 19 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible Journey of Joe Pike
If a book can be beautiful then L.A. Requiem is it. Mr. Crais uses a murdering spee in L.A. as a backdrop to the inner workings of Joe Pike. Read more
Published on Aug 22 2003 by Kim Waltman
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best
You might have to read a lot of mysteries/thrillers to find this
quality of writing. Author Crais provides depth to this story
that brings it truly into the realm of... Read more
quality of writing. Author Crais provides depth to this story
that brings it truly into the realm of... Read more
Published on Jun 3 2003 by bill runyon
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pike Takes Center Stage
"L.A. Requiem" is a tight, well-constructed novel with flashbacks that tie directly to the action. Read more
Published on Mar 8 2003 by Brian Kaufman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very smooth taunt thriller
Crais does his homework. You can just imagine the charecters on a TV movie set in LA. Good cast of antagonists especially "Pants Krantz". Read more
Published on Jan 28 2003 by Justin Sinclair-Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
As Close to Perfect as Possible!
Judging by the other reviews of LA Requiem, I won't be able to add much more but another glowing review of one of the best detective novels that I've ever read. Read more
Published on Jan 6 2003 by R. Stolzer
4.0 out of 5 stars
The book I keep hoping Robert Parker will write
Ever since Robert B. Parker's Spenser series started, a whole slew of imitators has developed. Tough but sensitive and moral detectives with really, really dangerous sidekicks... Read more
Published on Sep 6 2002 by book_nut
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