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Chasing Darkness: An Elvis Cole Novel (Elvis Cole) | Robert Crais | Great book, great series overall
 
 


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 Chasing Darkness: ...  

Chasing Darkness: An Elvis Cole Novel (Elvis Cole)
Robert Crais

Simon & Schuster, 2008 - 288 pages

average customer review:based on 69 reviews
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     highly recommended  highly recommended



Elvis Cole is Back--In a Desperate Fight to Clear his Name...

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.

Three years earlier Lionel Byrd was brought to trial for the murder of a female prostitute named Yvonne Bennett. A taped confession coerced by the police inspired a prominent defense attorney to take Byrd's case, and Elvis Cole was hired to investigate. It was Cole's eleventh-hour discovery of an exculpatory videotape that allowed Lionel Byrd to walk free. Elvis was hailed as a hero.

But the discovery of the death album in Byrd's lap now brands Elvis as an unwitting accomplice to murder. Captured in photographs that could only have been taken by the murderer, Yvonne Bennett was the fifth of the seven victims -- two more young women were murdered after Lionel Byrd walked free. So Elvis can't help but wonder -- did he, Elvis Cole, cost two more young women their lives?

Shut out of the investigation by a special LAPD task force determined to close the case, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike desperately fight to uncover the truth about Lionel Byrd and his nightmare album of death -- a truth hidden by lies, politics, and corruption in a world where nothing is what it seems to be.

Chasing Darkness is a blistering thriller from the bestselling author who sets the standard for intense, powerful crime writing.


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Elvis Has Come Back in the Building

Robert Crais has returned to Elvis Cole in this novel set in the Los Angeles area. Elvis is a private investigator who is draw into working on a suicide in the famous Laurel Canyon area of L.A. CHASING DARKNESS starts in like a Harry Bosch police procedural thriller. Which is okay, because I like Michael Connelly's protagonist almost as much as Elvis and his partner Joe Pike. Harry and Elvis can be seen rubbing shoulders, or at least bumping elbows, in at least one Crais novel.

This one is a little darker than most, and the bad guy, a serial killer of young women, really is evil. The powers that be want Elvis to drop his investigation. Case closed. But Elvis being Elvis can't leave it alone, and resorts to a little B&E, a high speed chase scene through the Hollywood Hills, breaking into the evidence room at Police Headquarters, and he becomes a murder suspect himself.

Elvis teams up with Joe Pike for this one, his running partner fresh from his starring role in THE WATCHMAN, my favorite one yet. Pike is there with the twitch in the corner of his mouth. that being as close to a smile as he can get. And there's chain smoking, tightly wound, Carol Starkey, formerly of the LAPD Bomb Squad, now with Homicide, who can be seen in an earlier Robert Crais novel DEMOLITION ANGEL. The girl, obvious to everyone, except Elvis Cole of course, has a Class A crush on the dude. He just doesn't get it. Or maybe he does, and is just not going for it.

This story kept me guessing until the end, which didn't take long since I couldn't put it down anyway. A true twisty mystery plot solved again by the world's greatest detective, Elvis Cole.



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Great book, great series overall

I had never read any books by Robert Crais prior to 2 months ago when I picked up Chasing Darkness. I had seen the name Elvis Cole here and there and thought any book with a PI named Elvis was probably going to be a joke, literally and figuratively. I am glad I overcame my own foolish preconceptions and give the series a shot.

I am not one to review a book by writing cover-flap copy and then applying stars, because I don't find those helpful. Nonetheless, this is a great book and it hooked me well enough that I have so far now read 12 Robert Crais novels in the last 2 months. I am reading them in no particular order, and I love them all just fine. Surprisingly, even the older books from the early 1990's are compelling and entertaining. this is probably because the author put in many years honing his chops writing for some of the best crime TV series of all time back in the 70's and the 80's and on.

Elvis Cole is not a caricature, but is in fact very likable, very tough and very real, in the sense that he reminds me of a few people I know, and not just a fictional creation. I attribute this to the excellent writing, or more correctly the excellent storytelling, powers of the author. The sense of place is vivid, the action is always well paced, with humor, humanity counterbalanced with tension and violence (they are crime novels after all). You experience the best and worst of human behavior in these books, and they are tactile and riveting.

Elvis' partner, Joe Pike, is one of the most ingenious characters in fiction, and while there is only one book so far where he is given center stage (The Watchman), I really hope there are more. However, his role as secondary to Elvis Cole is a good pairing because Joe is so unbelievably intense, it is his relationship with Elvis that allows them both to shine brightly. Pike is hard to describe, because you really have to experience him in a story to really appreciate his other-worldliness. In life, he would be frightening to encounter, but he has unexpected layers that change your view of him over time.

All and all, I give Robert Crais entire body of work the highest marks. I mean the novels I have read, of course; his complete work is much more extensive. As soon as I put one down, I am reaching for another. I am disappointed that I only have 3 more left to read. These books are the my best find this year. Very highly recommended.


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Another great book

This is another great book in the sreies. you dont need to start with the first book. Worth your money


Not A Great Story

Chasing Darkness is not the best of the Elvis Cole novels. First the plot is not that interesting. Second,the surpise ending doesn't seem right.
Third, Joe Pike doesn't have a large part in the story. Still this Robert Crais novel is far better than many of his peers in the same genre.


reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10



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