The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais

Elvis Cole sits in the Disney themed office of the Elvis Cole Detective Agency, doing what most PIs do between cases, staring out the window, only to have his concentration broken when Ellen Lang, accompanied by her bossy friend Janet Simon, asks to hire Elvis to find her missing husband and young son.

Seems ol' Mort Lang (Mort?) hasn't done so well since opening his own talent agency. Not only has he depleted all his funds, he's out showing off the newest starlet he is representing (and screwing). In an attempt to get funding for a film he is pushing this bimbo for, he attends the party of this old retired (and mob connected) Mexican bullfighter where our intrepid girl spots a brick of coke and decides she and her boyfriend need it more than does this old fart bullfighter. Now old Dominic isn't too happy to have lost 2 kg of coke. That's where Elvis comes in.

Ellen doesn't know any of this as she is pretty clueless about Mort's business and personal shenanigans. Everyone thinks Mort grabbed the coke (he didn't) and that Dominic grabbed the kid to hold as ransom for the coke (he did). So Elvis has to track Mort and his business associates plus the now missing bimbo through an army of Mexican muscle and Hollywood scum while avoiding some LA police brass that don't seem to like Elvis one bit (do all cops hate PIs?) and like Joe Pike even less (although we don't learn why in this installment).

He sort of squeezes a friend at a studio for the name of someone who might know how an amateur might move some cocaine. After some gentle encouragement (wink, wink), Elvis learns that Mort never had the coke, but that the #1 bimbo and her boyfriend have it. So, our intrepid PI faces them down (not a real challenge), takes the coke and get a message to Dom the Matador to arrange a trade. Which of course goes bad, leaving Elvis, Joe, and even Ellen no choice but to take out the trash. I kind of lost count, but I think the body count was upwards of 15 by the time Ellen was reunited with her son.

In a review of Hagberg's The Cabal by someone of questionable literary talent, I saw the suggestion to find the first McGarvey novel (which I had already done), so I naturally thought it made sense to instead find the first Elvis Cole novel. This is a fairly short paperback of only 200 pages that turns out to have been 'Named one of the century's 100 favorite mysteries' by some trade association. It won 2 other awards as best novel and was nominated for an Edgar and Shamus awards as best mystery books that year (1987). An impressive debut. But Crais wasn't the blind squirrel finding a nut. He had mystery writing chops from work on TV for Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, and Cagney and Lacey. While he nurtured a growing fan base, he apparently rocketed into the mainstream with L.A. Requiem. Why is Cole so addictive? Cuz he says what we poor schlubs on the couch only wish we could say, and still be cute about it, when the pressure is on. And we all now see that Joe Pike is the man, right from the start. Wonder how many people have gotten their delts adorned with those red arrows pointing forward?

So, having read the first, I figure now I'll slowly work my way forward when I have a break in new books due out this fall, including the new Michael Connelly. Best get ready, I'm #315 on the waiting list for The Reversal.

East Coast Don

The Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke

The story line is decent, but I found the dialogue to be monochromatic and predictable, as if he was just introducing Robicheaux, which he was not, or as if it was Burke’s first novel, rather than his sixth. While a good book only takes me a day to read, this one took me more than a week to get through, simply because I could never generate much enthusiasm for it. I won’t spend any more time than that with this review – enough said.

L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais

It's the mid 1990's LA. The Elvis Cole Detective Agency has been hired by Frank Garcia, local king of the burrito, to find his missing daughter, Karen. Frank called on Elvis because apparently Elvis's partner, Joe Pike, used to date Karen when she was a college student and he was a fairly new LA street cop.

[You remember Joe Pike, right? He of the sleeveless sweatshirt, aviator sunglasses (even at night), a tattoo of a horizontal red arrow pointing forward on each deltoid, Marine recon, disgraced cop, and soulless disposition. Just who you want in a tight situation.]

The cops won't look for her as she hasn't been missing long enough, but Elvis and Joe go looking for her . . . and she turns up dead, shot in the head while on a jog around a reservoir. Frank's burrito empire has earned him a lot of favors with the suits of LA and he gets Robbery/Homicide to take Cole along with them so Cole can report back to Frank. And the cops ain't happy about that. Not only do they not want Cole looking over their shoulder, Joe is not welcome. Turns out that when he was on the force, a potential bust of a pedophile went bad and Joe's mentor/partner was killed. IAD let Joe off, but the other cops weren't as accommodating and shun him as a 'cop-killer'.

During the investigation, we find out that Karen is the 5th by a serial killer and the cops think they have their man when the suspect is also murdered, and this time a witness describes seeing someone who looks just like Joe Pike. Now the cops smell blood and are ruthless at trying to peg these crimes Pike, cuz they all hate him, all expect one female detective who is getting the hots for Elvis despite Elvis living with a lawyer who left Louisiana for LA after working with Cole on a case near New Orleans.

At various places in the book, Crais leaves the 1st person narrative by Cole and goes 3rd person to tell the reader some backstory about Joe Pike -- as a cop, as a child, as a Marine recon recruit, as an admirer of his partner's wife -- and that is at the core of this tale, telling us how Joe became Joe Pike.

Robbery/Homicide gets enough evidence to arrest Pike, but Cole won't sit still, going into 'World' Greatest Detective' hyperdrive to find evidence to free his friend and partner. As faint clues, some clever deduction, and plenty of luck, Cole puts adds up the details and gets a different sum than do the tunnel-visioned cops. The righteous ending (for the perp) and the less than righteous ending for Elvis and his lady leave the reader both satisfied and feeling the pain Elvis feels.

Back then, Joe Pike did what he had to do, quitting the force rather than expose things better left hidden. Pike is nothing if not honorable, even if he had a thing for his partner's wife. Oh, and don't forget The First Rule . . . don't piss off Joe Pike.

This is a 1999 copyright so it's kind of early in the Cole/Pike saga and it rocks. To kind of mangle a line from the old Oiler's football coach, Bum Phillips, "Crais may not be in a class by himself . . . but it don't take long to call the role." Readers of MenReadingBooks should be able to tell that I put Crais in the same class with Bruen, Connelly, Child, Hunter, Leonard, Pelecanos, and Stella as writers of crime fiction that deliver 'can't miss' stories that are dang near guaranteed to make you forget yard and house work and hunker in a corner for the duration. You can't miss with Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. I'm now on the trail of The Monkey's Raincoat, the first Elvis Cole novel.

Now couldn't you just see Joe Pike and Jack Reacher on the same case?

East Coast Don

The Cabal by David Hagberg

In Hagberg's previous outing, The Expediter, an unseen force was behind the potentially catastrophic NKorea-China war. In The Cabel, Hagberg brings us and Kirk McGarvey face-to-face with the shadow group that makes the Corleone family look like refugees from Romper Room.

A Washington Post investigative reporter has uncovered information that an influential and ultra right wing group, The Friday Club, has been acting as a shadow government attempting to strengthen America's international position despite all attempts by the new ruling party in Washington to lesson the international position of the US. The reporter reaches out to a college buddy, Todd Van Buren who runs the infamous training 'Farm' for the CIA. Todd is married to CIA agent Liz who just happens to be Kirk McGarvey's daughter. After the meeting, Todd is gunned down south of Fredricksburg, VA on his way back to the farm and the reporter and family are murdered in their suburban DC townhouse that night.

McGarvey and wife are trying to live the quiet life of the recently retired on the Gulf Coast of Florida, but the loss of Todd brings them both to DC for the coming funeral. As one of the most decorated, successful, and efficient (meaning he kills quickly and effortlessly without remorse) operatives in the CIA's history, he rose to be the DCI for a time before getting out. The new 'progressive' President doesn't like McGarvey or his kind and based on the outcome of the adventure in The Expediter, has the AG investigate McGarvey for treason. McGarvey is being questioned when it's time for the funeral.

The assassins place an IED to kill McGarvey, but it goes off 1 car too soon. The outcome of that attempt sets McGarvey off on a trail of revenge and blind hatred starting with the security company hired by The Friday Club, Administrative Solutions. Knowing, without hard evidence, that Admin was behind the killings, McGarvey jets around and gets under the skin of the Admin founder and CEO. While virtually everyone has been told that they don't know what they are messing with in McGarvey, they go ahead and try to kill him a number of times, but as they really can't believe just how good McGarvey is, they continue to lose employees.

The final confrontation with the ridiculously right wing head of The Friday Club ends with McGarvey being arrested for treason, but all that has come out means that someone has to take out the trash.

As stated before, the McGarvey series by Hagberg is one terrific roller coaster ride. Hagberg brings all his political/techno thrillers along at the pace of a runaway train, never letting the plot slow down for the reader to catch a breath. This is what Tom Clancy used to be, but got caught up in excess research verbiage that resulted in bloated story lines and countless speaking parts. This is a bare bones thriller. McGarvey could have been the DCI for Clancy's Jack Ryan when he ended up as president. Or McGarvey could have been Mitch Rapp's teacher on the Farm, and he definitely has more moxie up his sleeve than Jack Bauer ever had. Don't plan on reading this 5-10 pages at a time. Once you start, better free up some time as there aren't logical stopping points until the last page . . . where of course, the first clue to the next book pops up. And, after all is said and done and the treason charges have been dropped, the President offers McGarvey his old DCI job back, to which he tells the President to stick his offer where the sun don't shine. Nice . . . vintage McGarvery . . . vintage Hagberg.

East Coast Don

The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer

As I recall, when we last left Milo Weaver at the conclusion of The Tourist, he was pulled as a CIA Tourist (the dirtiest part of the messy US intelligence network) deemed no longer dependable and under investigation for financial misconduct. Cleared and essentially broke, he has to go back into the field and prove himself to his bosses.

The Nearest Exit opens with a conspiracy nut and mostly failed American journalist living in Budapest receiving a letter from the deceased former head of the blackest of the black CIA projects, the Office of Tourism, telling him a grand tale and to trust only Milo Weaver. Within 24hr of receiving the letter, Henry Gray has been assaulted and tossed over a balcony only to survive, ending up in a coma. When he recovers, he ditches the hospital and goes into hiding. Seems the Office of Tourism was behind the assassination of a Muslim cleric in Sudan (an underlying plot point in The Tourist) that resulted in massive rioting and innocent deaths on a wide scale.

Milo is doing small jobs back as a Tourist which he does grudgingly, but balks when he is ordered to abduct, kill and dispose of a 15 year old Moldavian girl living with her parents in Germany. The moral ambiguity required to be a Tourist is lost on Milo who is the rare operative with a wife and step daughter, despite that their marriage is a bit strained. He forms a plan to abduct the girl, but keep her safe until he decides how to proceed. Unfortunately, the plans of a Tourist do not routinely go as planned.

Milo has also been ordered to vet a Ukrainian seeking asylum who claims to know of a mole within the Department of Tourism supposedly being run by the Chinese who lost a hold on oil in Sudan after the assassination and resulting riots. If true, the Office of Tourism will be shut down and a vindictive Senator will gladly slam the door shut for good.

Enter an experienced, obese, Riesling-chugging, Snickers-addicted mid level German intelligence operative named Erika. With some dogged investigation, she identifies Milo as the abductor, captures him (under the radar) and using some creative interview techniques finds out enough about the abduction to believe Milo and actually help him out a bit.

The story twists and turns through an almost dizzying array of plots as Milo tries to determine if the mole does indeed exist and why did that 15yo girl end up dead on the side of the road in France. As he thinks he has figured out, Milo quits in disgust and heads to NYC to repair his marriage when during a counseling session, a random word by his wife sends him back to the Office of Tourism, now having reordered some clues leading to different interpretations tying the mole hunt to the death of the girl.

While the Chicago Sun Times says Charlie Stella is "the best crime novelist you are not reading," Stephen King says Steinhauer's The Tourist is "the best spy novel that wasn't written by LeCarre." The Nearest Exit is richly plotted, intricately staged, and elegantly composed and paced. The intertwined plots are complex and confusing, best read in long sittings rather than a few pages at a time. While Steinhauer summarizes plot points from The Tourist, it might be best to read Tourist first to get a real feel for not only the moral damage Milo has suffered, but also the multilayer plotting that is reminiscent of early LeCarre.

A most interesting character is really not even portrayed; the Chinese spy-master pulling strings all over the world. Just why is he after the Office of Tourism? As Steinhauer deftly ties up loose ends, we are hit multiple times with a haymaker that does little to help neatly end the story with every bit of dirt swept out the door - a Steinhauer trait.

As I recall, people go after another government for ideology, greed, or passion. Add revenge to that list . . . and I defy the reader to see just where revenge enters here. That it's so hard to find is a tribute to Steinhauer's skills as a storyteller of complex, layered spy thrillers. Part 3 of the Milo Weaver trilogy will be on my must read list the day it is released.

East Coast Don

Mr. Slaughter by Robert McCammon

New York, 1702. This is the continuing tale of Matthew Corbett. In part 1 (Speaks the Nightbird), Matthew was a magistrate's apprentice in coastal North Carolina where he was helping investigate a woman charged with witchcraft. Part 2 (The Queen of Bedlam), Matthew has joined the New York office of the London-based Herrald Agency of problem-solvers and a key clue in his investigation of a street killer in NYC takes him to an asylum on the road to Philadelphia. In the background is the mysterious Professor Fell pulling strings. In part 3, Matthew and his mentor, Hudson Greathouse, have been hired for what should be a simple prisoner transfer, from that same asylum to the New York docks where the prisoner, Tyranthus Slaughter, is to be taken back to England to stand trial as a serial killer.

(full disclosure here: I am a committed fan of Robert McCammon. Having read most all of his titles, I can honestly say there were only 2 out of the 15 that I have read that were not absolutely top drawer, first rate thrillers. I was enthralled by Nightbird and was riveted by Bedlam, so it was highly probable that I would find Slaughter to be damn near perfection. So there.)

Two bits of backstory first. 1. Over a breakfast of delicious, spicy sausages from Philadelphia, Greathouse tells Matthew that he wants to free Zed, a powerful African warrior now a slave working for the local coroner, but he doesn't have the money. 2. Matthew, still stung by some failures during "Bedlam" goes back to an abandoned shell of a house and uncovers a large sum of money, which he agonizes over whether to keep it and raise his standard of living or tell Greathouse and use it to buy Zed's freedom.

Slaughter is evil in the flesh, so evil that Matthew wonders how God could allow such a man to exist. He is accused of multiple murders in England and the Colonies. Once Greathouse and Matthew take possession and start the trip back to New York, Slaughter (make that Mr. Slaughter as he wishes to be addressed not as a commoner) makes them an offer that tempts both Greathouse and Matthew. In his former life as a highwayman, Slaughter stashed away a large sum of money and offers it in exchange for his freedom. Greathouse sees it as a way to buy Zed's freedom, but Matthew is more cautious as he still has not told his partner about the money he'd found earlier. It's a decision that plays on Matthew's guilt throughout the book as he is absolutely convinced that all that followed was because of his own selfishness.

Along the detour deep into the Pennsylvania woods, they take refuge in a dying town with the survivors of a fever that killed the town: the aging pastor, an orphaned boy and his dog. As they travel on, Mr. Slaughter continues to play with Greathouse's mind and when they finally come to the treasure, it is booby trapped, critically injuring Greathouse, stranding the two in a well, and Mr. Slaughter escapes. With the aid of some local Seneca Indians, the two are rescued, but only Matthew is able to strike out in pursuit. The first thing to confront Matthew is the vicious murder of the paster and the dog, leaving the 12yo boy devastated.

The tale keeps Matthew chasing down Mr. Slaughter from one butchered family to the next. With the aid of a young Indian who has frightening nightmares because he has seen the future, they close in on Mr. Slaughter only to be turned back time and again by this master killer. At almost each confrontation, a mysterious shadow seems to surface, saving Matthew to fight again (and have mercy, are these fights graphically displayed by McCammon).

Upon reaching Philadelphia, Matthew tracks a few clues through a local inventor to a home for the aged to a brothel to a cemetery that places Mr. Slaughter in the company of the woman who makes those wonderful sausages. Mr. Slaughter is given an assignment by Professor Fell (!) to kill Matthew's former magistrate-mentor in North Carolina. So now, Matthew much get there first to catch the killer and protect his friend.

In the end, Matthew discovers that his name is on the list of accounts that this Professor Fell wants settled. Seems Mr. Slaughter is not just a soulless killer, he is also a killer for hire and has been doing this Professor Fell's biding for years.

Guessing that our next taste of Matthew Corbett's world will be a direct attempt at uncovering the identify of this Professor Fell.

For me, reading fiction is an escape into the creative mind of the author. As a writer of non-fiction, I am always impressed by creativity and imagination of the writers I find entertaining. But I find McCammon's work to be literary works of art. His writing style is the embodiment of an 'achievement' in modern literature and it is beyond my understanding why his work doesn't get more widespread praise and readership. He was unfairly compared to Stephen King as his early work were supernatural thrillers, but as he ventured away from that, he and his publisher parted was as each had different opinions about McCammon's direction. So he sort of retired for a while, but had continued to work on this historical narrative simmering in his mind and this trilogy is the result.

The Corbett series is not to be undertaken lightly as these are lengthly stories, rich in period detail with dozens of important characters and settings leading to righteous rewards for the reader. Despite the length of each, I never gave the density, depth, and length of story telling a second thought as each page brought out new and surprising twists to the story. 500? 600? 700 pages? Who cares, just keep 'em coming.

McCammon may be an acquired taste for some, but once I acquired the taste, I found the stories to be addicting to point of neglecting what others might think are more important responsibilities. It is probably a good thing that McCammon writes such rich stories requiring massive research and preparation. If these came out yearly like books by Child, Higgins Clark, Woods, Patterson, and others, I think my wife might have some issues.

Available on Kindle.

For those thinking McCammon might be worth a try, but worry about the commitment required for the Corbett series, consider Boy's Life, Mine, Gone South, or even The Wolf's Hour as these are a bit more accessible (despite being R rated for violence and gore).

East Coast Don