- Paperback
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Export (2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1416561692
- ISBN-13: 978-1416561699
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.4 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 200 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,986,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Joe Pike Reluctantly Takes Charge,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel (Hardcover)
No Elvis Cole fan who has ever enjoyed a scene of Joe Pike not smiling and not laughing will want to miss this book.To note that Joe Pike is the strong, silent type is to be redundant for those who have been reading Robert Crais's writing about Elvin Cole and Joe Pike. How do you take someone who rarely says more than three words at a time and build a novel around him? It's quite a challenge and Robert Crais almost makes it work perfectly. If you are new to Joe Pike, Mr. Crais does a nice job of including a little back story so this book is a standalone opportunity for you to enjoy a fine action thriller. At first blush, Larkin Barkley and Joe Pike couldn't be more different. She's rich, spoiled, willful, attention-seeking, and impulsive. He's a man of modest means, self-reliant, self-disciplined, attention-avoiding, and carefully calculating. But as you'll learn in the story, they share demons, perspectives, and instincts to protect others. The book opens in brilliant fashion in a hail of bullets as Joe Pike finds himself under attack soon after moving into a new "safe" house where he's taken Larkin Barkley. Who's spilling the beans? Joe decides to slip the leashes that have been placed on him, and pretty soon he's hunting prey rather than being hunted. Then we back up and find out how a billionaire's daughter finds herself the target of pistol-packing thugs. The young Ms. Barkley likes to race her high performance sports car at high speed down the empty L.A. streets in the middle of the night. This night, however, someone else is out and about, and she crashes into them. The two people in front are dazed, but appear to have no serious injuries. Their passenger bolts and runs down the street. The couple takes off also. Larkin tells the police about everything, but it's all a mystery until a few days later when she's approached about testifying to what she saw that night. From there, murderous attacks soon follow. Normally, Joe Pike wouldn't play bodyguard for anyone. But two moral obligations pull him into this case, and he will save Larkin's life despite her own willfulness as the only way to meet those obligations. In the meantime, a lot about what's going on doesn't quite make sense. Joe gradually unravels the layers of deceit to reveal the true crimes. From there, the resolution rapidly develops. Part of the intrigue of the story is that Larkin needs someone to treat her with concern . . . and not just save her life. Joe Pike finds that need more threatening than the bad guys but he bends as much as he can. But gradually, they develop a human connection that begins to work for both of them. The book's only weakness is that the "mystery" element is a little bizarre. The story would have been more interesting if the reason for the threat to Larkin had been a little less unusual. I found myself wondering about the plot a lot in the last 75 pages rather than just being able to enjoy the story. But the beginning is great fun. It's close to perfect. I was particularly impressed by the way Mr. Crais resisted the temptation to put in several more action scenes that would have diluted the punch of his powerful story.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Joe Pike takes center stage . . .,
By
This review is from: The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel (Hardcover)
My copy of "The Watchman" arrived yesterday and I just turned the last page, sad to see it end-- I rarely finish a book that fast! Joe Pike takes center stage in this hard-boiled crime thriller. The enigmatic Pike has been a background character in the popular Crais, Elvis Cole series. Joe is somewhat forced into being a protector for a wealthy hot young heiress, who is also a big party girl (think Paris Hilton if she had a bit more brains and style). The Heiress, Larkin Barkely, is in mortal danger through a strange set of circumstances that are really no fault of her own. I don't won't spoil anything, but the villain here is as intense as any I have encountered in recent modern fiction, and he will stop at nothing to get his desired results. Pike, of course, will have something to say about the outcome. As always Crais's pacing and stylings are top notch and the author deserves his perch at the top of the thriller genre!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (180 customer reviews) 57 of 62 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Everything's Zen,
By Gary Griffiths - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel (Hardcover)
In Joe Pike, "the world's greatest detective's" enigmatic and stoically violent sidekick of the "Elvis Cole" novels, the talented Robert Crais has created one of most intriguing characters in contemporary popular fiction. But with the wisecracking Cole still mostly sidelined from injuries suffered in "The Forgotten Man", Pike takes center stage in this well plotted, fast moving crime drama.With his red-arrowed deltoids "going forward, never back", Pike, to repay an old debt, reluctantly takes on the task of protecting Larkin Barkley, a spoiled LA society brat drawn with shades of Paris Hilton, right down to the rat-dog-in-the-purse detail. Returning home from late night revelry, Barkley t-bones a Mercedes full of the wrong people, and in a convoluted twist, ends up as a witness under protection. But when it becomes clear that the folks who'd prefer that Barkley not testify are deadly serious, Joe Pike gets the job of keeping the pouting debutant safe and sound. As always, Crais' prose is witty and fast moving. Joe Pike, who is about as chatty as Mount Rushmore, is cleverly contrasted against Larkin's tantrums. And Elvis Cole, while taking care not to swing the spotlight too far away from Pike's solo debut, throws around enough of his patented one-liners to keep his hardcore base smiling. But if the bond that builds gradually between Joe and Barkley stretches the bounds of credibility just a bit, this is, after all, fiction, and besides, Crais does a masterful job of building the sexual tension and creating - perish the thought - the hint of a soft side to Pike's impenetrable persona. While perhaps lacking the edge and grit of today's "garage writers of grime" - guys like Charlie Huston, Duane Swierczynski, Charlie Stella, or Victor Gischler - Crais' polished pages capture LA's sleaze and majesty, designed for appeal to broad audiences. All in all, a slick and well-rendered effort from one of today's best writers of mainstream fiction - top entertainment that is well worth the time and the 15-buck hardcover. 74 of 92 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Man of Action,
By Mel Odom - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel (Hardcover)
Joe Pike is the epitome of crime tough guys. Nobody does it better. He was a special forces soldier before he became an LAPD cop. He took the fall on charges that shouldn't have been dropped on him and was busted out of the LAPD. He became a mercenary and a some-time private eye that paired up with the World's Greatest Detective, Elvis Cole.He has red arrows pointing forward tattooed on his deltoids because Joe Pike does not back up. This is the guy I've been waiting years to read about. Author Robert Crais introduced one of the funniest and emotionally complex private detectives to come along in years in Elvis Cole, but he also crafted one of the hardest heroes to see print in decades. Joe Pike is the king of cool, the master of the understatement, and a man haunted by personal demons he'll never talk about. Hired by a friend of a friend, Joe agrees to bodyguard Larkin Barkley, a young woman who's the daughter of a multi-millionaire businessman. Larkin has a self-destructive tendency that only Joe seems to understand. Unfortunately, some of the same things she's in denial about are the same things that plague Joe. As the two fight to stay alive, and fight with each other, they come to realize that the only way they're going to get through the situation alive is to rely on and trust each other. Both of them have issues with that. Larkin is a witness in a brutal slaying. The murderer is believed to be a brutal head of a drug cartel who will stop at nothing to kill Larkin. The book starts off with a bang, with bullets ripping through the air and Pike's truck from the first pages to the close of the book. The novel grabs the reader by the throat and literally demands the reader's full attention. The assault on the reader's senses is relentless. Crais is an elaborate plotter, but it all makes sense when he shakes out the final twist. But the best thing of all is getting to ride shotgun with Joe Pike while he deals with enemy guns and the hostile past he has that keeps getting in the way while he's protecting Larkin. The dialogue, the descriptions, and the pacing are so well choreographed that you can see the movie spinning in your head. I liked the cameos that Elvis Cole had in this novel, but I'm glad Joe got to keep center stage. I really didn't think the novel would work that well because sometimes if a writer shines a light too brightly on an enigmatic hero that everything that existed is turned into a cheap trick. But Joe Pike is for real. He's an unstoppable force and an avenging angel all rolled into one. The publishers mention that this is a JOE PIKE NOVEL right on the cover. Hopefully there will be future installments. If so, they'd be most welcome. 26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Grows on you as it builds up,
By Peter G. Keen "rabidreader" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel (Hardcover)
Around page 100, I would have rated this just 3-4 stars. It ends up as a firm 5 by the end. There seem to me to be two distinct strands in thriller writing -- character builders and plot artists. Crais is more of a plotter than a character guy; I never quite get inside his two heroes, Pike and Cole -- they seem just a little artificial. But he is superb in plotting. What begins as a routine story line weaves, turns, double backs and grabs you to the last pages. He is a good stylist -- deft, brief and precise. He is also superb in his portrayals of violence and cruelty; you get a sense here of Pike's dissociation and his own detachment. The heroine -- Paris Hilton but without the intellect -- does not come alive for me; again, too artificial. The villains are shadows not realities. But, this is a minor point. The book works superbly. I loved it.
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