Stalking the Angel (Hardcover)

If you have yet to begin the marvelous Elvis Cole series by Robert Crais, you've got a great treat ahead of you! Few series get off to a stronger start than Mr. Crais did with The Monkey's Raincoat, which won both the Anthony and Macavity awards for best novel while being nominated for the Edgar and Shamus awards as well. And the books just keep getting better from there in their characterizations, action, story-telling and excitement.

Elvis Cole is the star attraction, the co-owner of The Elvis Cole Detective Agency. He's 35ish, ex-Army, served in Vietnam, ex-security guard, has two years of college, learned to be a detective by working under George Feider, a licensed P.I. for over 40 years, does martial arts as enthusiastically as most people do lunch, and is fearless but not foolish. He's out to right the wrongs of the world as much as he is to earn a living. Elvis has a thing for Disney characters (including a Pinocchio clock), kids, cats, scared clients and rapid fire repartee. He drives a Jamaica yellow 1966 Corvette Stingray convertible, and usually carries a .38 Special Dan Wesson.

His main foil is partner, Joe Pike, an ex-Marine, ex-cop who moves quietly and mysteriously wearing shades even in the dark . . . when he's not scaring the bad guys with the red arrows tattooed on his deltoids, which are usually bare in sleeveless shirts. Although he's got an office with Elvis, Pike spends all of his time at his gun shop when not routing the bad guys with martial arts while carrying and often using enough firepower to stop a tank. Pike rarely speaks . . . and never smiles. A standing gag is trying to catch Pike with a little twitch of his lips indicating he might possibly be amused. But he's there when you need him. He drives a red Jeep.

Robert Parker's Spenser is the obvious character parallel for Elvis, but Spenser and Elvis are different in some ways. Cole is more solitary, usually being alone when he's not working. Cole is very much L.A. and Spenser is ultra blue collar Boston. Cole is martial arts while Spenser boxes and jogs. What they have in common is that they're both out to do the right thing, with money being unimportant. They both love to crack wise as they take on the bad guys. The bad guys hate the "humor" in both cases, and can't do much about it. The dialogue written for each is intensely rich.

Mr. Crais has a special talent for making you care about his characters, especially the clients and their kids. You'll want to know what happens to them. With a lot of experience in script writing, Mr. Crais also knows how to set the scene physically and make you feel it. He may be out finest fiction writer about physical movement. He gives you all the clues to picture what's going on . . . but draws back from giving so much detail that you can?t use your own imagination to make things better.

I grew up near Los Angeles, and get a special pleasure out of reading his descriptions of the differences in cities, neighborhoods, and buildings in the area. He gets in right . . . and in detail. It's a nice touch!

On to Stalking the Angel, the second book in the series:

"I love to hear the story
which angel voices tell."
--The Little Corporal
Emily Miller

"When the truth is found to be lies,
and all the joy within you dies,
don't you want somebody to love?"
--Jefferson Airplane

When Jillian Becker walks into his office, Elvis Cole thinks she's "the best looking woman I'd seen in three weeks" despite being dressed as a "Serious Businesswoman." She introduces her boss, Bradley Warren, and within three pages Elvis is being asked to find the Hagakure, an 18th century manuscript outlining all proper forms of samurai behavior. The Hagakure has disappeared from Warren's home safe, where it was being stored temporarily while on loan from the influential Tashiro family in Kyoto, before a planned exhibition in Warren's new hotel located in L.A.'s Little Tokyo district. Although the manuscript is insured for three million dollars, the insurance won't begin to cover the losses that Warren will suffer from the Tashiro family taking their business elsewhere.

As the predicament is being explained, Elvis is wisecracking away. Warren doesn't like his attitude and tells him so. Elvis recommends Pinkerton's. Elvis tells Warren that he won't take the case, and that he doesn't like Warren. Warren tells Jillian to leave a blank check. Jillian calms both men down and Elvis has a new client.

The trail of the Hagakure brings Elvis and Joe into some of the most unappetizing situations I remember reading about in hard-boiled fiction. There are Japanese gangsters (the infamous Yakuza), vicious killings, gruesome family secrets, horrible betrayals and dangerous sexual obsessions to deal with.

The story develops in small segments from quite different perspectives, usually in chapters of 4-5 pages in length, like a scene in a drama. Each change adds to a mosaic portrait of the characters and the overall situation. So the story moves fast . . . but without leaving you behind. There is enough material in this book to make three or four novels.

Pay particular attention to the evolution of your perceptions of Jillian and Mimi. Mr. Crais does a nice job of helping you realize all sides of their characters. That's one quality that takes this book above the best of the Spenser books.

After you finish the book, you might find it interesting to think about the dangers that can come from reaching for more than we can handle.

What can you do to resist harmful temptation?

Donald Mitchell
Co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage