The First Rule by Robert Crais

We know Joe Pike, the sidekick for Crais' investigator Elvis Cole. Pike was a mercenary after the Marines and he still keeps tabs on his crew. One of them, Frank Meyers, has left the life behind for a wife, 2 kids, a nanny and a pool in Brentwood. One evening, a crew from Compton that has already boosted 6 other homes invades Frank's home, killing everyone. A CSI friend of Joe's alerts him to the events and Joe is not happy.

All the previous break-ins attacked various criminals and LAPD thinks Frank must've been dirty on some level, a conclusion Joe can't agree with and sets out to find out who is behind the slaughter.

The nanny was the Serbian sister of a prostitute and was hiding an infant that is supposedly the whore's child by a Serbian mobster. Learning this puts Pike on the trail of the ultra-secretive society of EOC-European Organized Crime. One thing troubling Pike is a woman who doesn't look LAPD working with them. He soon learns she is ATF and tracking a shipment of 3000 Kalishnikov rifles coming into LA headed to a violent EOC crime boss named Darko.

Pike's investigation steers away from the Compton crew (especially when he finds them all dead), manages to piece together the various layers of this Serbian mob and some of their business. While no one seems to have ever seen Darko, Pike decides to steal from Darko and force him to come out after him. At one shootout, Pike takes the baby to safety and then plans a meet with a rival Serb who has the rifles and set up Darko and the supplier to be taken down by the ATF. While the takedown doesn't go as planned, Darko still gets captured. Turns out Frank wasn't dirty, just collateral damage during a kidnapping. The baby is adopted out and Darko gets transferred to a maximum security jail...a jail where, conveniently, one of Pike's mercenary crew members Lonnie (who was once saved by Frank when a mission went south) is housed serving life for murder . . . and Lonnie has an ice pick.

Crais, like Michael Connelly, writes terrific straight forward crime fiction and Joe Pike is one efficient and feared killing machine. He plays a secondary role in the Elvis Cole series, but is front and center here. The plot has a sufficient number of blind alleys that keep the reader glued to the page - an easy read in a week. I liken Pike to Lee Child's Jack Reacher...the strong silent type helping out those unable to help themselves. Ask me today which hero I like better and I'll say Joe Pike. But when Child's next Jack Reacher novel comes out this year, I'll probably shift. What can I say, I'm easily impressed. Let me read a few more Pike novels and I'm guessing that Reacher will just shrug and let me put on some mirrored shades and a cutoff sweatshirt to sit in Pike's corner.

The first rule? Don't piss off Joe Pike.

East Coast Don