- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (Feb 18 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385504268
- ISBN-13: 978-0385504263
- Product Dimensions: 24.3 x 16.3 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 549 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,085,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Don't start reading The Last Detective with much on your calendar. This tense, satisfying thriller will glue you to your chair, as private eye Elvis Cole--the star of eight previous Robert Crais novels, prior to the Cole-less Demolition Angel and Hostage--faces his toughest case: the abduction of his girlfriend's son, 10-year-old Ben Chenier, who was staying with Elvis when he was snatched.
Panic at Ben's disappearance turns to terror when the kidnapper phones to reveal his apparent motive, a dark secret from Elvis's past. But the plot thickens and twists, and then twists again, as Elvis and his longtime buddy, tough guy Joe Pike, race the clock against a group of villains as sinister as they are capable. The author mixes Elvis's first-person narration with third-person sections that describe other points of view--a risky technique, but Crais makes it work. He also does a fine job resurrecting the wisecracking Elvis of earlier books while imbuing him with a new depth and darkness.
This dazzlingly plotted, crisply told story is threaded with real detection (what a rarity!) and peopled by characters you can't help but care about--including Carol Starkey, the haunted bomb-squad cop from Demolition Angel, who's now a juvenile-abduction detective. Crais has long been getting better with each book, and The Last Detective continues the pattern. --Nicholas H. Allison
From Publishers Weekly
Elvis lives! Elvis Cole that is, Crais's iconoclastic, smart-aleck L.A. PI, last seen in Indigo Slam (1997). Violent and action-packed, this eighth book in the series has less of Cole's usual wisecracking but all the intensity and convoluted plotting of his two recent stand-alone thrillers, Demolition Angel (2000) and Hostage (2001). Cole is babysitting Ben, the 10-year-old son of his lawyer lover, Lucy Chenier, when the boy is kidnapped. As Cole and his super-tough, enigmatic pal, Joe Pike, join the police in the search for Ben, Lucy's obnoxious ex-husband, Richard, arrives from New Orleans with his own investigators. At first, the kidnappers imply they're seeking revenge for atrocities Cole committed in Vietnam. Several powerful, beautifully written flashbacks to Cole's horrendous Nam experiences and his troubled childhood follow. The narrative switches between Cole's vivid first-person point-of-view and a third-person account of a brave, frightened Ben and his savage captors. As the kidnappers' deadline nears and disturbing motives surface, the suspense becomes almost unbearable. The terrible, heartstopping climax is so well written that time seems to stop. Crais combines the thriller and private eye genres into a dazzling novel that is far more accomplished than the sum of its parts.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
A silence filled the canyon below my house that fall; no hawks floated overhead, the coyotes did not sing, the owl that lived in the tall pine outside my door no longer asked my name. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
A silence filled the canyon below my house that fall; no hawks floated overhead, the coyotes did not sing, the owl that lived in the tall pine outside my door no longer asked my name. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elvis Cole is Back!,
By
This review is from: The Last Detective: A Novel (Hardcover)
Once again Robert Crais has managed to produce another page turning thriller with the characters he started with, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. What's so great about Crais is he manages to churn out nail biting suspense while at the same time revealing more of the personalities and personal demons of his characters. For those who have never read him before, you could read this as a stand alone, but the experience is much deeper if you've read all the previous Cole novels. In this one, Lucy Chenier's son Ben is kidnapped by a man who is bent on revenge for something Cole had done in his past. Elvis with the help of a worn and recovering Joe Pike hunts him down. Fast paced with plenty of twists, my only fault with the book, is that it was over too soon.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing,
By
This review is from: The Last Detective (Mass Market Paperback)
First of all, I've been a huge fan of Elvis Cole and Robert Crais since I read The Monkey's Raincoat. This series has been incredibly enjoyable, to say the least. The turn that Crais took at LA Requiem was probably necessary to breath new life into the series and, in fact, that was my favorite of the bunch. The problem is that I miss the lighthearted banter! The new Elvis too closely resembles the real world, a world I'm trying to escape by reading these books in the first place. The biggest flaw with The Last Detective is the simple fact that I knew who done it the minute I read the story outline prior to actually reading the book. That occured while I was reading Indigo Slam a year ago! This is the first time ever in my experience that I knew who the guilty party in a mystery was before I even read the book. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it sure is incomprehesible to me that Elvis wouldn't have been immediately aware of who done it right away too. This book was written for new readers of the series who never picked up an Elvis Cole book prior to this. I enjoyed alot of the elements of this story but couldn't get past this part. The story would have been every bit as accessable to all potential readers if Elvis would have openly suspected the bad guy right from the start and then worked to prove him culpable. When his character walks around oblivious as to who done it, especially in light of many elements of the last 2 or 3 novels that point directly at the bad guy, this story lost alot for me. It's my least favorite in the franchise.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Gripping read!,
By
This review is from: The Last Detective (Mass Market Paperback)
This was a fast paced thriller that is sure to be one of Robert Crais' best books. It grabbed my senses from the very beginning and didn't let up until I finished reading the exciting ending.I think that it is probably one of the darkest books in the series, and it is fascinating how it explores Elvis' past, and Joe Pike's hidden insecurities. I couldn't put the book down and I read it over a two evening period. The only disappointment was the solution of the kidnapping...a little bit contrived and unrealistic in my mind. Still, this is a roller coaster read and I highly recommend it.
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