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 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