My Favorite Detective

Elvis Cole #2:  Stalking the Angel by Robert Crais

Mystery/Procedural-Crime

I love Elvis Cole!  He is so funny-so biting and sarcastic and dark.  He's a guy I would like to have a pizza with.  Joe Pike is also back.  He is really scary but also somehow endearing.  He's a guy I would never cross.

In this book, Elvis has been hired to locate an ancient Japanese manuscript.  His search leads him straight into the middle of a Yakuza turf war (that's a Japanese mob for those of you not savvy on crime).  Of course, with Elvis, nothing is as easy as it seems.  He also has a messed up family and a missing teen on his hands.I love that he's a man of his word with an iron will. When he quits the case (he doesn't like taking money from a man as vile as his client), he still solves the case because he said he would!

These books were published in the late 1980's but you couldn't tell from the writing.  It is still a great crime read for today.  I love Cole's lackadaisical attitude, his 'take me or leave me, I could care less'.  That makes him so irresistible--no wonder all the women fall into his bed. 

While the book is funny and sarcastic, don't dismiss the detective work.  It's hard, though--you'll be so involved in the characterization that you'll forget about the amazing mystery.  Cole takes everything to heart and he will find the answers to all his questions-and he doesn't care who he has to kill to get it.  A man after my own heart!   Cole and Pike are my kind of heroes-hiding in the dark, righting wrongs.  You never know when to expect the hammer of justice to fall, but you know it's coming and it's going to be brutal.