The Forgotten Man (Elvis Cole Novels)
by Robert Crais
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert CraisEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Published: 2006-01-31
ISBN: 0345451910
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of The Forgotten Man (Elvis Cole Novels)
Book Review: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "ELVIS COLE FANS LEARN A LOT ABOUT ELVIS'S MYSTERIOUS YOUTH!"
Summary: 5 Stars
"THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS WITH MURDER. IT WOULD HAUNT THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED HERE AND THE COPS WHO INVESTIGATED THE CASE AND THE FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF THE VICTIMS AND THE LITTLE GIRL MOST OF ALL. THE MURDER WOULD CHANGE HER. SHE WOULD BECOME SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHO SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN. SHE WOULD GROW INTO SOMEONE ELSE."
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Whether you're an existing Robert Crais fan, or if this is your first book in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series, you're in for a literary treat. As a great fan of Crais, I am always amazed how he so seamlessly mixes action and humor, with what actually amounts to silky emotional prose, in the middle of bullets, fists, and wit, and it almost seems effortless.
The story starts off with a flashback to the scene of a brutal and massively bloody crime scene. A Mother, Father, and son are found beaten brutally to death. In the midst of this bloody carnage are petite little foot prints through the pools of blood that led into a dark bedroom where the policeman found a little girl that could not have been more than four-years-old sucking her index finger. From that haunting scene we are transported to present day Los Angeles, where the "WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE" Elvis Cole gets a call from a Los Angeles homicide detective, telling Elvis that they found an old man in an alley dying of a gunshot wound holding old newspaper clippings of Elvis's prior heroics. His last words stated that he was Cole's long-lost Father, whose unknown identity has plagued Elvis throughout his entire life.
This leads to a multi-faceted story that includes Elvis being considered a murder suspect. So along with Cole trying to clear his own name, he is also trying to solve the biggest mystery of his entire life that he has even kept hidden from his closest friend Joe Pike... and that is... who is his Father? This gripping tale includes fake names and relationships, escort services, sexual blackmail, favors being called in from old friends and acquaintances, and a number of bittersweet poignant flashbacks to Elvis's youth, where he ran away from home on more than a handful of occasions in search for his elusive, unknown Father. A good example of the author's prose comes during one of the flashbacks when young Elvis is in a car with a detective that was hired by Elvis's Grandfather to find and retrieve him from another of his runaway attempts to find his nameless Father: "DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR MOM GOES WHEN SHE DISAPPEARS? THE HARDNESS DROPPED FROM THE BOY'S FACE LIKE FOG HIDING FROM THE SUN. HE STARED AT WILSON WITH WIDE, EXPECTANT EYES."
As an experienced Crais reader I find myself looking forward to his velvety use of words, which at times is like pulling silk over polished steel, with as much anticipation as I do his action sequences. Another example: "THE SALTON SEA WAS THE LARGEST, LOWEST LAKE IN CALIFORNIA, FILLING THE BROAD, FLAT BASIN OF THE SALTON SINK LIKE A MIRROR LAID ON THE DESERT FLOOR. IT WAS SHALLOW BECAUSE THE LAND WAS FLAT, AND SURROUNDED BY BARREN DESERT AND SCORCHED ROCKS LIKE SOME FORGOTTEN PUDDLE IN HELL." And of course his short-biting parenthetical humor, such as when he meets a woman that talked too much: "JANICE TALKED SO MUCH IT WAS LIKE DROWNING IN A VERBAL NIAGARA FALLS."
Robert Crais is at the top of his game and has created an Elvis Cole/Joe Pike genre that his fans can't get enough of. I recommend this book highly.
Summary of The Forgotten Man (Elvis Cole Novels)
Elvis Cole is back...With his acclaimed bestsellers, Hostage (a New York Times Notable Book) and Demolition Angel, Robert Crais drew raves for his unstoppable pacing, edgy characterizations, and cinematic prose. Now, in The Last Detective, Crais returns to his signature character, Los Angeles private investigator Elvis Cole, in a masterful page-turner that probes the meaning of family and the burdens of the past.
Elvis Cole's relationship with attorney Lucy Chenier is strained. When she moved from Louisiana to join Elvis in Los Angeles, she never dreamed that violence would so easily touch her life -- but then the unthinkable happens. While Lucy is away on business and her ten-year-old son, Ben, is staying with Elvis, Ben disappears without a trace. Desperate to believe that the boy has run away, evidence soon mounts to suggest a much darker scenario.
Joining forces with his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, Elvis frantically searches for Ben with the help of LAPD Detective Carol Starkey, as Lucy's wealthy, oil-industry ex-husband attempts to wrest control of the investigation. Amid the maelstrom of personal conflicts, Elvis and Joe are forced to consider a more troubling lead -- one indicating that Ben's disappearance is connected to a terrible, long-held secret from Elvis Cole's past.
Venturing deep inside a complex psyche, Crais explores Elvis's need for family - the military that embraced him during a troubled adolescence, his rock-solid partnership with Pike, and his floundering relationship with Lucy - as they race the clock in their search for Ben. The Last Detective is Robert Crais' richest, most intense tale of suspense yet.
From the Hardcover edition.
In his major New York Times bestseller, THE LAST DETECTIVE, Robert Crais returned to his signature characters, private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike. Now Crais delivers a stunning, edge-of-your-seat suspense novel that leads Elvis to the very thing he’s always searched for—the dark secrets of his own life…as well as a brutal killer determined to stop him.
Los Angeles, 3:58 a.m.: Elvis Cole receives the phone call he’s been waiting for since childhood. Responding to a gunshot, the LAPD has found an injured man in an alleyway. He has told the officer on the scene that he is looking for his son, Elvis Cole. Minutes later, the man is dead.
Haunted throughout his life by a lack of knowledge about his father, Elvis turns to the one person who can help him navigate the minefield of his past— his longtime partner and confidant, Joe Pike. Together with hard-edged LAPD detective, Carol Starkey, they launch a feverish search for the dead man’s identity—even as Elvis struggles between wanting to believe he’s found his father at last and allowing his suspicions to hold him back. With each long-buried clue they unearth, a frightening picture begins to emerge about who the dead man might have been and the terrible secret he’s been guarding.
At the same time, Elvis has no way of knowing he has awakened a sleeping monster. The further he goes in his investigation, the closer he draws to a merciless killer who is violently connected to the unidentified man’s past. This psychopath believes Cole is hunting him, and he goes on the attack to find Elvis before Elvis can find him.
Summoning all the powerful elements that have made Robert Crais one of the preeminent crime writers today, THE FORGOTTEN MAN is a spectacular tour-de-force of suspense and intrigue.
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