Voodoo River (Elvis Cole Novels (Prebound)) | Robert Crais

Voodoo River (Elvis Cole Novels (Prebound)) | Robert Crais | I Like Elvis

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Voodoo River (Elvi...

	Voodoo River (Elvis Cole Novels (Prebound)) Robert Crais Hyperion, 1996 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 47 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Hired by popular television star Jodie Taylor to find the biological parents who gave her up for adoption thirty-six years earlier, Los Angeles private eye Elvis Cole becomes suspicious when other investigators searching for Jodie's parents are killed. Reprint. PW.

Terrific

I love all the Elvis Cole books that Robert Crais has written. He is one great guy. Mystery is always in the mix and he solves them very well. I'd like to have read them in sequence, but didn't get that order until after I'd read about 5 of his books.

Love his books.

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I Like Elvis

Voodoo River is an easy and relatively fast paced novel. Elvis Cole is hired by a television actress (who was adopted) to investigate her biological parents' health histories. (So she says). Elvis does get to the heart of the mystery. All the pieces comes together. Elvis meets his future love Lucy in this novel. Elvis is a kind , compassionate person. I was not bored. (A-).

Another Enjoyable Elvis Cole Mystery

VOODOO RIVER is the fifth installment in Robert Crais's "Elvis Cole" series about a wisecracking PI in Los Angeles. I am currently reading this series in order, and I thought this was an entertaining read.

As I've mentioned in prior reviews of Crais's work, I really enjoy his writing style, which reminds me heavily of Robert Parker's Spenser novels. Like Parker, Crais writes his prose in a very crisp and witty manner. Half the pleasure of this novel is simply listening to Elvis Cole's descriptions of the setting and his reactions to the often colorful people he encounters.

Crais's plotting is ultimately quite formulaic, and there's very little in VOODOO RIVER that I haven't seen before in other Elvis Cole books like LULLABY TOWN. The only major differences here are (1) the Louisiana setting and (2) a new love interest for Cole, who's been curiously celibate for the past few novels. These are probably the best two elements of the book, although I personally felt the romance was a bit sudden and underdeveloped.

Overall, VOODOO RIVER is another solid entry in the Elvis Cole series. While Crais's work lacks the emotional depth of the work of authors such as Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, or Nelson DeMille, he's definitely one of the better writers in the genre.

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Too Much Richness

Remember those Thanksgiving Dinners you had as a kid? After all the turkey, gravy, buttered rolls, mashed potatoes, etc., you could stuff into your happy tummy then would come the dessert buffet. Of course, you had "just a sliver" of pumpkin pie with the whipped cream, a small serving of the banana pudding just to one side of your plate and maybe a couple of chocolates teetering on the very edge. Sounds great but it was over done and you ended up with a tummy ache. That's how this book fits into the Elvis Cole universe. There is simply TOO much going on! The settings of BOTH Hollywood and the backcountry bayou create more texture than necessary . More overdone colorful characters than you could shake a stick at--or take a stick too. Bloody violence and a plot that seemed contrived at the motivation level. Elvis is our tarnished knight and we know he wants justice for the weak, but this case is one he should have simply walked away from.

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Action and affability in the bayous

It's not hard to see why readers like Crais' work -- his novels have an engaging readability about them, and this is no exception. The private detective with the funny name, Elvis Cole, saunters into the assignment of discovering an adopted TV star's birth parents and soon finds himself knee-deep in the swamps of Louisiana battling people smugglers of a very violent nature.
As the action turns darker, Cole makes the transition from a wise-cracking sleuth to a hard-nosed crime fighter as he stands between the innocent or unintentionally guilty and a mass of vicious and greedy gangsters.
The whole effect is of James Lee Burke in a sunny mood, a novel which keeps you turning the pages without sinking you completely into the murkiest depths of the human condition. Pacey, fun and very readable indeed.

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