Another gorgeous day in SoCal. Joe Pike has a little bank business
to attend to. Stops in his usual branch. A couple tellers are drooling. Joe
does what he needs to do. Heads out to his clean, red Jeep Cherokee, sorts
though his paperwork. Looks up and sees the teller being forced into a car and
driven off. To say this upsets Joe’s sensibilities is an understatement.
He follows the car. The car weaves around some side streets.
At a stop sign, Joe gets out, smashes the driver window, subdues the driver and
the captor. Isabel Roland, the 22-yo teller, is safe. The bad guys are locked
up. Joe tries to calm her down.
The cops call Joe a couple days later. Want him to come back
to the precinct to continue the interview. The 2 guys made bail. And were found
dead within 24 hours. They wondered if Joe had anything to do with it. He didn’t.
Which the cops should know. If Joe had done it, the bodies would never have
been found.
Izzy is freaked to say the least. Why her? She lives alone
in the house she grew up in. Left to her by her recently deceased mother. Works
as a bank teller. Day or two later, Izzy’s bestie calls Joe. Izzy is missing.
Time for Joe to call in his partner, Elvis Cole. He knows
the right questions to ask. How to find friends. Track cell phone calls and
texts. The smart parts of a PI agency.
A few weeks ago, a retired US Marshall, who liked golf almost
as much as gin, was found dead and buried in a cherry orchard in the nearby desert.
The guy was a family friend that Izzy called after the first abduction, but
never connected.
Turns out Izzy’s family history isn’t what her parents told
her. Mom and Dad weren’t native Californians. They’d grown up in the Houston
area. High school sweethearts who got married. Mom was working in the business
side of a 2-man medical practice that was getting rich the wrong way. The docs
were pushing knockoff (and sometimes deadly) meds and making a fortune. With
the feds closing in, Izzy’s mom testified. The docs ended up in
prison and Mom and Dad went into Witness Protection, settling in LA.
That should’ve been the end of it, but the docs were apparently
in bed with a big-time cartel head who was convinced that Izzy’s mom had run
off with a huge chunk of profits that should’ve been his. He’s been looking for
the mom for 25 years. Doesn’t matter that Izzy’s mom is dead. Izzy must know
about the money and he wants it back.
The drug king enlists a middleman to head up the abduction
and information gathering. Might’ve been easy had Joe Pike chosen to grab a
milkshake before going into the bank on that day and time. Joe Pike is a
dangerous man. Once he gets a scent, nothing will stop him from following the
scent to its final and righteous end.
Learned something about our county library system when
checking out this book. When major authors, like Crais, publish a new release, the
library buys at least 20 copies of the book (20 branches). For really big-time
authors, 50-75 copies are purchased (and once the crush of requests falls off,
the excess go to secondary book sellers or the library’s annual garage sale). People
sign up on a wait list and get notified when our request comes to the top of
the list. When I signed up, I was something like 90th on a list of over 400 and growing by the day. The library also set aside maybe
a dozen copies, scattered amongst the various branches, for their Lucky Day
rack. I was in the library getting another book and spotted this highly anticipated
book on the Lucky Day rack. Picked it up, checked it out, and my name was
removed from the wait list. Wednesday was my Lucky Day. Now, 48hrs later, I
post this review.
For those how don’t know, Robert Crais is (and may still be,
I don’t know right now) the most reviewed author here at MRB. A Dangerous Man
is the 22nd title in Crais’ Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series. If you’ve
never read Crais, pick up any title. Connections to prior books are clearly
laid out, just in case. Crais just gets better and better. He doesn’t put out a
new book every fall for the upcoming holiday buying crunch like so many other heavy
hitters. Makes the wait even sweeter. Every book by Crais is a winner and A Dangerous
Man will keep Crais firmly entrenched in our Power Rotation.
Time to return the book for the next guy to have a Lucky Day.
East Coast Don
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