I’ve got three friends that give me unfailing book recommendations: Scott, Chuck, and Remo. This one came from Scott.
Elvis Cole is a private eye in LA who has a partner named Joe Pike. I’ve enjoyed the series so much that I’ve already finished the first three books. The first book in the series, The Monkey’s Raincoat, was published in 1987 but is set a couple of years earlier – before cell phones became ubiquitous. It’s a nice reminder of the days when you had to carry change for pay phones and sometimes found them occupied, forcing you to wait or find a phone down the block. I have college memories of pay phones lined up at the student center like port-a-potties at a 10K. Ah, the heady days of actually being out of touch.
Cole and Pike are both Army vets who served in Vietnam. Both picked up a fair amount of toughness from the experience although Pike is the one who became “very good at inflicting violence.”
I’m reading the books in order because I enjoy seeing authors mature in their style and ability over time. Thus far, they’re all worth reading and remind me of a blend of Michael Connelly’s Bosch series and John Sanford’s Prey series.
If you’re unwilling to commit to the entire 19 (!) book series, consider starting with The Sentry. Mostly the books stand alone with only minor ties to earlier works – nothing that spoils the story if you read them out of order.
The Monkey’s Raincoat starts in LA and involves a wife looking for her missing husband and son. At one point the story takes them up to the High Desert near where I used to live and fly. It’s interesting to see places you’ve lived through someone else’s eyes.
As a writer, Crais does a couple of things that I appreciated in the novel. First of all, he gives some insight into how marriage and relationships change people – even when we don’t see it. It’s very nicely done. The second is that the characters are well developed. Pike comes off as a caricature at first and develops much later than Cole, but Crais develops them both.
These aren’t Sci Fi, but are great stories nonetheless. On the Feral Scale, Monkey’s Raincoat comes in at an 8.