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
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