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The Last Detective (Ome) (Perfect Paperback)

by Robert Crais (Author) "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..." (more)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (84 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Perfect Paperback: 343 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0752842382
ISBN-13: 978-0752842387

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (84 customer reviews)

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This is item 9 in The Elvis Cole Series.

Product Description

From Amazon.com

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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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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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	74% buy the item featured on this page: The Last Detective (Ome) 4.2 out of 5 stars (84)
	11% buy The Monkey's Raincoat 4.2 out of 5 stars (65) CDN$ 10.79
	8% buy Sunset Express: An Elvis Cole Novel 4.5 out of 5 stars (6) CDN$ 9.89
	3% buy Free Fall 4.4 out of 5 stars (29) CDN$ 9.89

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Customer Reviews

84 Reviews

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (84 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, Jun 22 2004

By	J. Minkey (San Carlos, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Suspenseful, Jun 4 2004

By	Philippe Horak (Zug, Switzerland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Last Detective (Mass Market Paperback)

Elvis Cole is once again coming to terms with his life as a private eye in the streets of Los Angeles. He loves his girlfriend Lucy Chenier, but their relationship is stretched to the limit when Cole's job brings danger very close her beloved son Ben. When Ben is snatched from Cole's secluded home, the demons from Elvis's past catch up with him. The kidnappers want retribution for an incident that happened twenty years ago in Vietnam. Now Elvis must embark on a journey into his past to protect his future...

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5.0 out of 5 stars A six stars writer, April 22 2004

By	Jorge Frid (Mexico City) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Last Detective: A Novel (Hardcover)

Definitively RC is a six stars writer, the way he explains what are thinking all the characters at the same action in the book is excellent, the way he combine the characters of L.A. Requiem and Demolition Angel and explain them the easiest way so you don't have to read these books to understand this one is also excellent.
The story of the kidnap and the way everybody is related to that won't let you put the book down until you finish it, but when the book is done, you will ask for more.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Cole moves along
Robert Crais has had an arc to his career that has been interesting, to say the least. Crais started out writing cute, relatively straightforward, violent private eye novels. Read more

Published on April 2 2004 by David W. Nicholas

5.0 out of 5 stars Action packed kidnapping tale
One of the things Crais uses to add tension in this excellent book is the use of a running timeline. Read more

Published on Mar 10 2004 by Paul Skinner

4.0 out of 5 stars A riveting plot
One of the most eagerly awaited novels this year is the latest by Bob Crais. It is another in the Elvis Cole series. Read more

Published on Mar 2 2004 by Larry Gandle

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Crais' best
I have read nearly all of Crais' novels, and found this the least enjoyable. Not only was it very dark and lacking in humor, but the plot was simplistic and the person ultimately... Read more

Published on Jan 21 2004