Showing results by author "Robert Crais" in All Categories

Originally published a decade ago and now expanded, this book is a homage to the greatest detective story writer of the 20th century, an Anglo-American who took Los Angeles, his adopted home, off the road maps and into the land of legend. For Raymond Chandler, who died in 1959, his literary descendants will do just about anything, and that includes contributing to an anthology honoring him. Thus, in here we find the likes of Sara Paretsky, Robert Crais, Loren D. Estleman, Jonathan Valin, Robert Campbell, Eric Van Lustbader, Simon Brett, Julie Smith, Jeremiah Healy, Roger L. Simon, James ...

Elvis Cole's girlfriend, Lucy, is out of town and she has left her young son, Ben, in Elvis' care. Elvis and Lucy have had a few problems lately - not least over his job as a private investigator. But at last things seem to be getting better. Then Ben disappears. One minute he's playing his computer game in Elvis' house; the next he has vanished. Elvis looks everywhere, but he just can't find Ben; and neither can Lucy when she arrives.

When Nita Morales hires Elvis Cole to find her missing daughter, she's sure it's a ruse orchestrated by the girl and her boyfriend. She's wrong. They've been taken by bajadores - border bandits who prey on the innocent by buying, selling, and disposing of victims like commodities. Cole and Joe Pike start an undercover investigation to find the couple, but their plan derails when Cole disappears, leaving Pike to burn through the murderous world of human traffickers to find his friend as well as the missing young people. But he may already be too late...

Elvis Cole is just a detective who can't say no, especially to a girl in a terrible fix. And Jennifer Sheridan qualifies. Her fiance, Mark Thurman, is a decorated LA cop with an elite plainclothes unit, but Jennifer is sure he's in trouble - the kind of serious trouble that only Cole can get him out of.

Elvis Cole. All round nice guy. Always the first man to help a stranger in distress. This time, however, he's paid the ultimate price for trying to be the good Samaritan. Joe Pike. A fierce protector and a dangerous enemy. This time his tough guy exterior will be tested to the limit as he risks everything to save his closest friend. The clock is ticking now that Elvis has been Taken.

Joe Pike n’avait rien prévu. Juste une visite à sa banque de quartier. Mais quand il assiste à l’enlèvement brutal d’une jeune employée par deux hommes, son instinct prend le dessus : il intervient, sauve la victime… et se retrouve plongé dans une affaire qui le dépasse. Peu après avoir été libérés sous caution, les ravisseurs sont retrouvés morts et Isabel a disparu. Pike est le principal suspect, avec Izzy. S’agit-il d’un enlèvement qui a mal tourné ? Ou tout s’est-il déroulé exactement comme elle l’avait prévu ?

Bradley Warren had lost something very valuable, something that belonged to someone else: a rare 13th-century Japanese manuscript called the Hagakure. Everything PI Elvis Cole knew about Japanese culture he'd learned from reading Shogun, but he knew a lot of crooks - and what he didn't know, his sidekick Joe Pike did.

Together, Cole and Pike begin their search in L.A.'s Little Tokyo, the nest of the notorious Japanese mafia, the Yakuza.

Peter Alan Nelsen is a super-successful movie director who is used to getting what he wants. And what he wants now is to find the wife and infant child he dumped on the road to fame. It's the kind of case that Cole could handle in his sleep, except that when Cole actually finds Nelsen's ex-wife, everything takes on nightmarish proportions - a nightmare which involves Cole with a nasty New York mob family and a psycho killer who is the son of the godfather.

A long time ago, Joe Pike asked for help. In return, he would, one day, be called upon to return the favour, no questions asked. That day has come. Joe Pike is asked to protect the life of Larkin Conner Barkley, a spoiled rich girl who happens to be a federal witness in a major case. But someone is leaking information about their whereabouts, and the killers are getting all too close. So Pike hatches a plan: disappear into the anonymous underbelly of Los Angeles, turn the tables and hunt down the hunters.

It is fire season and the hills of Los Angeles are burning. As the Police and Fire Departments evacuate the inhabitants, they find something no one expected: the days-old corpse of a middle-aged recluse who apparently committed suicide. Then comes an even more horrible discovery. Clutched in his lap is a photo album containing photographs of seven young women who have been murdered. Each photograph was taken only moments after the women were killed and could only have been taken by the killer.

Fifteen-year-old Teri Hewitt has been left holding the babies since her dad disappeared without trace. She wants LA private eye Elvis Cole to find him and although he knows he should refuse and hand it over to social services, he finds himself taking on the case. The search reveals a chronically unemployed drug addict caught up in counterfeiting scams and mixed up with the Russian mafia and Vietnamese gunmen.

After the nightmare of Hurricane Katrina, Dru Rayne and her uncle relocated to Los Angeles. Five years later, their struggling restaurant faces a different danger. When Joe Pike witnesses Dru's uncle beaten by a neighbourhood gang, he offers his own brand of protection, but neither Dru nor her uncle want his help. And neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching their store...But Pike is falling for Dru and won't back away whether she wants his help or not.

Frank Meyer had got out of 'the life' safely. He had put an end to his mercenary days, turned over a new leaf and settled down with his wife and children. It had been a hard decision but, encouraged by his boss and friend Joe Pike, he had walked away. Ten years later, a group of armed men break into his Los Angeles home and brutally gun down him and his family. It's a vicious, cold and professional job. The crew leave no trace behind except the bodies.

On his own turf in L.A., PI Elvis Cole is embroiled in a controversial, high-profile murder case. A wealthy restaurateur is accused of murdering his wife and his hot-shot defence lawyer hires Cole to find proof that the detective on the case, Angela Rossi, fooled around with the evidence. Yet as Elvis investigates Rossi for the defence team, he begins to be more suspicious of the media-loving lawyers than the cops.

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The festival was an immediate success and has become the largest and most prestigious book festival in the country, attracting more than 130,000 book lovers each year.

Two minutes can be a lifetime. But break the two minute rule and it's a lifetime in jail. Ask anyone on the wrong side of the law about the two minute rule and they'll tell you that's as long as you can hope for at a robbery before the cops show up.But not everyone plays by the rules. When an ageing ex-con finally gets out of jail, freedom doesn't taste too sweet. His son is gunned down in a drive-by shooting.

Dopo aver accettato un incarico strettamente riservato, Elvis Cole si mette sulle tracce di una madre sconvolta dal dolore e misteriosamente scomparsa. In una notte di pioggia incessante, la sua ricerca lo conduce nei pressi di una casa come tante a Echo Park, Los Angeles, dove le sue indagini incroceranno quelle dell'agente del Dipartimento di Polizia Scott James e del suo cane poliziotto, Maggie.

Joe Pike non si aspettava di salvare una donna, quel giorno. Ma quando Isabel Roland, "Izzy", giovane e solitaria cassiera in banca, esce per la pausa pranzo dall'edificio in cui lavora, Joe si accorge che due uomini stanno tentando di rapirla. Riesce a fermarli e i malviventi vengono arrestati, ma si tratta solo dell'inizio dei guai per Joe e Izzy. Usciti su cauzione, i due uomini vengono uccisi e Isabel scompare all'improvviso. Pike capisce immediatamente che la ragazza è in grave pericolo e chiede al suo amico Elvis Cole di aiutarlo a far luce sulla vicenda.

Quando Devon Connor, mamma single, si accorge che il suo tormentato figlio adolescente, Tyson, maneggia troppi soldi, teme che abbia a che fare con il mondo della droga e decide di assumere l'investigatore privato Elvis Cole per scoprire cosa sta succedendo. Ma la verità è tragicamente molto diversa. Con altri due ragazzi, Tyson è responsabile di una serie di furti di alto livello. Una scelta folle che ha un epilogo mortale quando i tre rubano la cosa sbagliata all'uomo sbagliato, il quale, deciso a recuperare ciò che è suo, assolda due killer spietati, i migliori sulla piazza.

Adele Schumacher non è la tipica mamma preoccupata. Quando ingaggia Elvis Cole per ritrovare il figlio scomparso, Josh, ideatore di un controverso podcast su UFO e alieni, porta con sé una borsa piena di soldi, bizzarri racconti di cospirazioni governative e una squadra di guardie del corpo professioniste. Trovare Josh dovrebbe essere semplice, ma Elvis scopre ben presto di non essere solo nella caccia: una squadra micidiale di misteriosi sconosciuti è determinata ad arrivare prima di tutti a Josh e alla sua amica Skylar, star del cinema porno.