Showing results by author "Robert Crais" in All Categories

Adele Schumacher isn't a typical worried mom. When she hires Elvis to find her missing son, a controversial podcaster named Josh Shoe, she brings a bag filled with cash, bizarre tales of government conspiracies, and a squad of professional bodyguards. Finding Josh should be simple, but Elvis quickly learns he isn't alone in the hunt—a deadly team of mysterious strangers are determined to find Josh and his adult film star girlfriend first.

The blonde who walked into Cole’s office was the best looking woman he’d seen in weeks. The only thing that kept her from rating a perfect "10" was the briefcase on one arm and the uptight hotel magnate on the other. Bradley Warren had lost something very valuable - something that belonged to someone else: a rare thirteenth-century Japanese manuscript called the Hagakure. Just about all Cole knew about Japanese culture he’d learned from reading Shogun, but he knew a lot about crooks - and what he didn’t know his sociopathic sidekick, Joe Pike, did.

Joe Pike didn't expect to rescue a woman that day. He went to the bank same as anyone goes to the bank, and returned to his Jeep. So when Isabel Roland, the lonely young teller who helped him, steps out of the bank on her way to lunch, Joe is on hand when two men abduct her. Joe chases them down, and the two men are arrested. But instead of putting the drama to rest, the arrests are only the beginning of the trouble for Joe and Izzy.

When gangbangers shake down the modest owner of a Los Angeles eatery, Joe Pike intervenes. For all intents and purposes, Pike saved Wilson Smith's life. But for reasons of their own, Smith and his lovely niece, Dru, are curiously resentful. It's only when Pike's feelings for the woman deepen that he and his partner, Elvis Cole, discover that Dru and her uncle are not at all who they seem, and everything Pike has learned about them is a lie. But it's much more than a deception. It's a trap. And with every new twist it's proving to be a killer.

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.

L.A. private eye Elvis Cole is hired by popular television star Jodie Taylor to delve into her past and identify the biological parents who gave her up for adoption thirty-six years before. Cole's assignment is to find out their biological history and report back. 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.

The day starts like any other in LA. The sun burns hot as the Santa Ana winds blow ash from mountain fires to coat the glittering city. But for Private Investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, is dead, brutally murdered with a gun shot to the head.

Hollywood’s newest wunderkind is Peter Alan Nelsen, the brilliant, erratic director known as the King of Adventure. His films make billions, but his manners make enemies. What the boy king wants, he gets, and what Nelsen wants is for Elvis to comb the country for the wife and infant child the film-school flunkout dumped en route to becoming the third-biggest filmmaker in America. It’s the kind of case Cole can handle in his sleep - until it turns out to be a nightmare. For when Cole finds Nelsen’s ex-wife in a small Connecticut town, she’s nothing like he expects.

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...

When quiet Ellen Lang enters Elvis Cole's Disney-deco office, she's lost something very valuable - her husband and young son. The case seems simple enough, but Elvis isn't thrilled. Neither is his enigmatic partner and firepower Joe Pike. Their search down the seamy side of Hollywood's studio lots and sculptured lawns soon leads them deep into a nasty netherworld of drugs and sex - and murder. Now the case is getting interesting, but it's also turned ugly.

When gangbangers shake down the modest owner of a Los Angeles eatery, Joe Pike intervenes. For all intents and purposes, Pike saved Wilson Smith's life. But for reasons of their own, Smith and his lovely niece, Dru, are curiously resentful. It's only when Pike's feelings for the woman deepen that he and his partner, Elvis Cole, discover that Dru and her uncle are not at all who they seem, and everything Pike has learned about them is a lie. But it's much more than a deception. It's a trap. And with every new twist it's proving to be a killer.

Hollywood’s newest wunderkind is Peter Alan Nelsen, the brilliant, erratic director known as the King of Adventure. His films make billions, but his manners make enemies. What the boy king wants, he gets, and what Nelsen wants is for Elvis to comb the country for the wife and infant child the film-school flunkout dumped en route to becoming the third-biggest filmmaker in America. It’s the kind of case Cole can handle in his sleep - until it turns out to be a nightmare. For when Cole finds Nelsen’s ex-wife in a small Connecticut town, she’s nothing like he expects

Elvis Cole is hired to find a woman who’s disappeared, a seemingly ordinary case, until he learns the missing woman is an explosives expert and worked for a Defense Department contractor. Meanwhile, LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his patrol dog, Maggie, track a fugitive to a house filled with explosives - and a dead body. As the two cases intertwine, they all find themselves up against shadowy arms dealers and corrupt officials, and the very woman they promised to save may be the cause of their own deaths.

L.A. private investigator Eddie Church doesn’t do divorce work, but collecting alimony and back child support for Louise Barris should be easy money. Korean War veteran Frank Barris has a new job and is flush again. All Eddie has to do is collect the check and deliver it to Louise and her airplane-loving little boy. When the check bounces, Eddie discovers that Louise isn’t the only one after Frank and this case involves much more than just battling exes.

Elvis Cole is just a detective who can't say no, especially to a girl in a terrible fix. And Jennifer Sheridan qualifies: Her fiancé, Mark Thurman, is a decorated LA cop with an elite plainclothes unit, but Jennifer's sure he's in trouble - the kind of serious trouble that only Elvis Cole can help him out of. Five minutes after his new client leaves his office, Elvis and his partner, the enigmatic Joe Pike, are hip-deep in a deadly situation as they plummet into a world of South Central gangs, corrupt cops, and conspiracies of silence.

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.

Lawyer David Hamill is ready to start over. Fresh off of a divorce, he plans to recharge in Lake Tahoe on his way to his new job at a prestigious law firm in San Francisco. When David’s new sports car—an indulgence he barely could afford but couldn’t resist—runs dangerously low on gas on his late-night road trip, the sign for the truck route offers hope for a place to fill up. Then his car loses speed and power on the winding isolated highway, leaving David stranded with few options in high desert country.

LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well, not since 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. The German shepherd survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing explosives before she lost her handler to an IED and sniper attack, and her PTSD is as bad as Scott’s.

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.

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.