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