MT Review: The Promise: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel (An Elvis Cole Novel)

I've finished "The Promise" the 16th book in his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series by Robert Crais.

Product Description

Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are joined by Suspect heroes LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his German shepherd, Maggie, in the new heart-stopping thriller from #1 New York Times-bestselling author Robert Crais.

Loyalty, commitment, and the fight for justice have always driven Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. If they make a promise, they keep it. Even if it could get them killed.

When Elvis Cole is secretly hired to find a grief-stricken mother, he's led to an ordinary house on a rainy night in Echo Park. Only the house isn't ordinary, and the people hiding inside are a desperate fugitive and a murderous criminal with his own dangerous secrets.

As helicopters swirl overhead, Scott and Maggie track the fugitive to this same house, coming face-to-face with Mr. Rollins, a killer who leaves behind a brutally murdered body and enough explosives to destroy the neighborhood. Scott is now the only person who can identify him, but Mr. Rollins has a rule: Never leave a witness alive.

For all of them, the night is only beginning.

Sworn to secrecy by his client, Elvis finds himself targeted by the police even as Mr. Rollins targets Maggie and Scott. As Mr. Rollins closes in for the kill, Elvis and Joe join forces with Scott and Maggie to follow a trail of lies where no one is who they claim -- and the very woman they promised to save might get them all killed.

About the Author

Robert Crais is the author of many New York Times bestsellers, most recently Suspect and Taken. This is his twentieth novel. He lives in Los Angeles.

Product Details
Series: An Elvis Cole Novel
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons; First Edition first Printing edition (November 10, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 039916149X
ISBN-13: 978-0399161490

My Review:

4/5

MT Review: Taken [Hardcover]

I've finished "Taken" the 15th book in his Elvis Cole series by Robert Crais.

Product Description

When the police tell a wealthy industrialist that her missing son has faked his own kidnapping, she hires Elvis Cole and Joe Pike - and Cole soon determines that it was no fake. The boy and his secret girlfriend have been taken, and are now lost in the gray and changing world of the professional border kidnappers who prey not only on innocent victims but also on one another - buying, selling, and stealing victims like commodities. Fortunately, the kidnappers don't yet know who the boy is, but when Cole goes undercover to try to buy the two hostages back, he himself is taken and disappears. Now it is up to Pike to retrace Cole's steps, burning through the hard and murderous world of human traffickers . . . before it is too late.

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (January 24, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399158278
ISBN-13: 978-0399158278

My Review:

A young Latina girl and her boyfriend are kidnapped by a band of bandits along a Mexican border.  These bandits prey on other criminals because they won't go to the police.  The main theme of this book is about bajadores who steal immigrants bound for the United States.  This kidnapping people organization is often ignored problem along the Mexican border.

Elvis Cole is hired by the mother of the kidnapped woman to rescue her daughter. Cole soon discovers what has happened to her and he enters into a risky and dangerous arrangement with a Korean organized criminal. It's a desperate move and Cole knows it.

When the plan backfires Cole is kidnapped by the bajadores Pike must come to his rescue.  He is backed up by fellow mercenary Jon Stone and he holds nothing back to get his friend back when he follows the trail the bajadores leave in their wake.  He finds out the FBI is also on the hunt for Cole and Pike is on the race to find him before they do and Cole's secret identity is blown and they make a mistake.

This book was very tense at times, fast paced, well researched and well written.  The bajadores are very cruel in their dealings with their victims.

I loved Jon Stone and hope to see him in future books!

5/5

Thanks Penguin Canada for sending me this book to review, greatly appreciated!

Other books in series:

1.  The Monkey's Raincoat
2.  Stalking the Angel
3.  Lullaby Town
4.  Freefall
5.  Voodoo River
6.  Sunset Express
7.  Indigo Slam
8.  L.A. Requim
9.  The Last Detective
10. The Forgotten Man
11. The Watchman
12. Chasing Darkness
13. The First Rule
14. The Sentry

The Sentry (Joe Pike Novel) [Hardcover]

I've finished "The Sentry" the 3rd book in his Joe Pike series by Robert Crais.

Product Description

The extraordinary new crime novel from the New York Times bestselling author.

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.

About the Author

Robert Crais is the 2006 recipient of the Ross Macdonald Literary Award. He is the author of many New York Times bestsellers, most recently The First Rule.

Product Details
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1 edition (January 11, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399157077
ISBN-13: 978-0399157073

My Review:

Storyline:  The Sentry opens with a prologue featuring a truly creepy and scary killer in New Orleans in 2005.

Then in the present day, Joe is at a gas station when he sees two men swaggering into a sandwich shop. Their body language tells Joe that the men are up to no good.

He enters the shop to see what's happening. He finds the the two men are beating the shop owner and showing no sign of letting up. Joe takes out one of the attackers and the other runs away.

The police arrest the attacker who Joe took down but later that night someone throws a can of paint through the shop window.

The owner's niece, Dru Rayne, asks Joe to help. Joe learns that the gang is trying to shake down the store owner for protection money. Joe approaches that gang leader and obtains the man's assurance that the hostilities toward the store owner will desist.

Joe believes that he has removed the threat and he and Dru enjoy a coffee break and visit. Dru tells him about her past and shows him a photo of her daughter. This hints that it could be the start of a romantic affair.

The next night, violence escalates. Some enters the store and creates havoc and a sign is painted on the wall, "I am here."

Joe recruits Elvis Cole to help him out who in turn recruits Lucy Chenier and her private investigator in the case.

Characters: Joe Pike is a noble ex-mercenary, ex-Los Angeles Police Officer and a man who cares for the less fortunate or abused. He's very popular with readers for his His courageousness and nobility.  He never worries about himself and will be in the middle of a fray to protective people he cares about.

Elvis is in a dark place at the moment with the events that has transpired in recent times (ex:  he lost the Lucy Chenier the women he loves and her little boy - though they are still friends).  I really love the way he treasures Joe as a long time friend and confidant and doesn't really like killing people which makes him cry.  

Romance:  It really looked like it was start of a romance between Joe and Dru but she's not who he thinks she is and that killed the romance between them.  He was really attracted to her and I know it hurt him when he found out who she was and what she was.

Killer(s):  Daniel is a hit man who is the creepiest and scariest killer Robert Crais has ever created.  Man is he very disturbing and I'm sure gave most people nightmares (he likes to play and torture his victims and make them suffer and then go for the final kill)!

4/5

The First Rule (Joe Pike Novels) (Hardcover)

I've finished reading "The First Rule" the 2nd Joe Pike Novel by Robert Crais.

Product Description

From the New York Times-bestselling author who sets the standard for intense, powerful crime-writing comes a blistering thriller featuring Joe Pike and Elvis Cole.

The Watchman put Joe Pike, Elvis Cole's strong, taciturn partner, front and center, and not only won Robert Crais new audiences but remarkable reviews. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel said "Robert Crais elevates crime fiction" and now with The First Rule he does it again.

The organized criminal gangs of the former Soviet Union are bound by what they call the thieves' code. The first rule is this: A thief must forsake his mother, father, brothers, and sisters. He must have no family-no wife, no children. We are his family. If any of the rules are broken, it is punishable by death.

Frank Meyer had the American dream-until the day a professional crew invaded his home and murdered everyone inside. The only thing out of the ordinary about Meyer was that- before the family and the business and the normal life-a younger Frank Meyer had worked as a professional mercenary, with a man named Joe Pike. The police think Meyer was hiding something very bad, but Pike does not. With the help of Cole, he sets out on a hunt of his own-an investigation that quickly entangles them both in a web of ancient grudges, blood ties, blackmail, vengeance, double crosses, and cutthroat criminal­ity, and at the heart of it, an act so terrible even Pike and Cole have no way to measure it. Sometimes, the past is never dead. It's not even past.

The First Rule is the most astonishing novel yet from the master of the crime thriller.

About the Author

Robert Crais is the 2006 recipient of the Ross Macdonald Literary Award. He is the author of many New York Times bestsellers, including Chasing Darkness, The Watchman, and The Last Detective.
 
My Review:
 
Storyline:  Pretty good storyline one that has alot of twist and turns and never one you expected!

Characters:  Joe Pike is not your average man and I love his tats of two red arrows on his arms pointing forward!  He takes matters in his own hands and never listens to the law!  Glad to see Elvis Cole and Jon Stone among other friends.  I love Elvis's signature saying "Aren't I American's Greatest Detective"?

Killer(s):  I'm glad the really bad guy got want he deserved but I didn't really expect him to go that way!  He was really brutal and mean since he kills his own crew members in vicious ways!

4/5