"The Two-minute Rule"
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| Wow. A real page-turner. |
When ex-con Max Holman finally gets out of jail, freedom doesn’t taste too sweet.
The only thing on his mind is reconciliation with his estranged son, who is, ironically, a cop. But then he hears the devastating news: His son and three other Los Angeles police officers were gunned down in cold blood the night before Holman’s release.
When the hit is exposed as a revenge killing and the question of police corruption is raised, it becomes a father’s last duty to clear his son’s name and catch the killer.
With all the elements that have made Robert Crais one of the very best crime novelists today, "The Two-minute Rule" is gripping, edgy suspense from the author who sets the standard when it comes to surprising plot twists and powerful characters.
"Suspect"
LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well. Eight months ago, a shocking nighttime assault by unidentified men killed his partner Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode. He is unfit for duty—until he meets his new partner.
Maggie is not doing so well, either. A German shepherd who survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing explosives before losing her handler to an IED, her PTSD is as bad as Scott’s.
They are each other’s last chance. Shunned and shunted to the side, they set out to investigate the one case that no one wants them to touch: the identity of the men who murdered Stephanie.
What they begin to find is nothing like what Scott has been told, and the journey will take them both through the darkest moments of their own personal hells. Whether they will make it out again, no one can say.
"The Forgotten Man"
Six months after nearly losing everything to the men who kidnapped his girlfriend's ten-year-old son, Elvis Cole is slowly rebuilding his life when he receives an ominous call from the LAPD. An unidentified body has been found in a seedy Los Angeles motel and Elvis is needed urgently at the scene. When he arrives to identify the dead man, cops scrutinize Cole's reaction, but Elvis is unable to help -- he has never seen the man before. Finally, Elvis is told that the subject was still alive when the first officer responded. Before he died, the old man claimed that Elvis Cole was his son.
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"The Last Detective"
But beneath his wisecracking, cocky exterior has lain a troubled soul, and when the son of his longtime girlfriend, Lucy Chenier, goes missing, Cole's demons - from the secrets of his childhood to the haunting, long-suppressed images of his service in Vietnam - threaten to destroy the world he's built.
"The Monkey's Raincoat"
The novel that introduced Elvis Cole, L.A. Private Eye and his partner, Joe Pike. Ellen Lang walks into Cole's Disney-Deco office and hires Elvis to find her husband and son. Elvis and Joe search through Hollywood leads them to a world of drugs, sex and murder.
It's fire season, and the hills of Los Angeles are burning. When police and fire department personnel rush door to door in a frenzied evacuation effort, they discover the week-old corpse of an apparent suicide. But the gunshot victim is less gruesome than what they find in his lap: a photo album of seven brutally murdered young women -- one per year, for seven years. And when the suicide victim is identified as a former suspect in one of the murders, the news turns Elvis Cole's world upside down.
Dru Rayne and her uncle fled to L.A. after Hurricane Katrina; but now, five years later, they face a different danger. When Joe Pike witnesses Dru's uncle beaten by a protection gang, he offers his help, but neither of them want it-and neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching them. As the level of violence escalates, and Pike himself becomes a target, he and Elvis Cole learn that Dru and her uncle are not who they seem- and that everything he thought he knew about them has been a lie. A vengeful and murderous force from their past is now catching up to them . . . and only Pike and Cole stand in the way.
"The Watchman"
The city was hers for a single hour, just the one magic hour, only hers.
Larkin Conner Barkley lives like the City of Angels is hers for the taking. Young and staggeringly rich, she speeds through the city during its loneliest hours, blowing through red after red in her Aston Martin as if running for her life. Until out of nowhere a car appears, and with it the metal-on-metal explosion of a terrible accident. Dazed, Larkin attempts to help the other victims. And finds herself the sole witness in a secret federal investigation.
When a wealthy L.A. restaurateur is accused of murdering his wife, his attorney hires Elvis Cole to find proof that police detective Angela Rossi fooled around with the evidence. As Elvis investigates, he becomes more suspicious of the lawyers than the cops.
"The First Rule"
Frank and Cindy Meyer had the American dream – until the day a professional robbery crew invaded their home and murdered everyone inside. The only thing out of the ordinary about Frank was that – before his family, business, and oh-so-normal life – a younger Frank Meyer worked as a professional mercenary . . . with a man named Joe Pike. They are about to learn the first rule. Don’t make Pike mad.
 "Hostage"
Jeff Talley was a good husband, a fine father, and a front line negotiator with LAPD's SWAT unit. But the high-stress, unforgiving job took an irreparable toll on his psyche.
Unable to talk down a despondent father before he murders his wife and son and takes his own life, Talley plummets into a downward spiral. His marriage ends, he resigns from SWAT, and he struggles to escape from his former life by taking the chief-of-police job in a sleepy, affluent bedroom community far from the chaos and crime of Los Angeles.  "Demolition Angel"  Against the dazzling and lonely backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles, Crais has crafted the most unforgettable female lead character in crime fiction and pitted her against a frighteningly brilliant killer for the modern age. 
"LA Requiem"
Los Angeles is a city of perpetual reinvention. Inviting, with a promise of infinite hope, it can also be a glittering landscape of debilitating isolation. The city's lost souls take comfort in its promise-the notion that tomorrow could be the day to start all over again, to transform oneself into someone else. Someone more powerful, more beautiful, more daring. This is the novel that created a new direction for both L.A. detective Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike. It explores the metamorphosis of a disenfranchised loner from victim to executioner, and deeply involves the reader in the lives of the men and women charged with guarding the City of Angels.
"Taken"
When Nita Morales hires Elvis Cole to find her missing adult daughter, she isn’t afraid, even though she’s gotten a phone call asking for ransom. She knows it’s a fake, that her daughter is off with the guy Nita will only call “that boy,” and that they need money: “Even smart girls do stupid things when they think a boy loves them.”
But Nita is wrong. The girl and her boyfriend have been taken by bajadores – bandits who prey on other bandits, border professionals who prey not only on innocent victims, but on each other. They steal drugs, guns, and people – buying and selling victims like commodities, and killing the ones they can’t get a price for.
Elvis Cole and Joe Pike find the spot where they were taken. There are tire tracks, bullet casings, and bloodstains. They know things look as bad as possible. But they are wrong, too. It is about to get worse. Going undercover to find the two young people and buy them back, Cole himself is taken, and now it is up to Joe Pike to retrace Cole’s steps, burning through the hard and murderous world of human traffickers to find his friend. But he may already be too late.. 
"Voodoo River"
Hired by popular television star Jodie Taylor to find her biological parents, L.A. private eye Elvis Cole travels to Louisiana to begin the search. There, he finds others also looking for Taylor's parents, and some of them are ending up dead.
It seems all too clear cut. But when he gets to Louisiana and begins his search, he finds that there's something much darker going on. Other people are also looking for Taylor's parents; and some are ending up dead.
And when Cole realizes that his employer knew more than she was telling, Voodoo River becomes a twisting tale of identity, secrets, and murder.
“A Dangerous Man”  After posting bail, the two abductors are murdered and Izzy disappears. Pike calls on his friend, Elvis Cole, to help learn the truth. What Elvis uncovers is a twisted family story that involves corporate whistleblowing, huge amounts of cash, the Witness Relocation Program, and a long line of lies. But what of all that did Izzy know? Is she a perpetrator or a victim? And how far will Joe go to find out? |
