Joe Pike didn't expect to rescue a woman that day. So when Isabel Roland, the young teller who helped him at the bank, steps out for lunch, Joe is on hand when two men abduct her. Joe chases them down, and the two men are arrested. But instead of putting the drama to bed, the arrests are only the beginning of the trouble for Joe and Izzy.
Crais is a whip-smart writer. Cole and Pike are carefully drawn, multilayered characters who’ve grown more complex through the years. This is one of the very best entries in a long-running and still first-rate series.
Mr. Crais unspools this tense and involving saga—which races all over the Los Angeles area, from the fading allure of the 'Miracle Mile' to the sun-blasted San Fernando Valley to the shores of Malibu—with dashes of wit, lots of local color, many bursts of sudden action and some 300 pages of relentless suspense.
If you’ve always wished Lee Child’s Jack Reacher had a little more balance in his life—but the same formidable talents—you'll love Joe Pike and the latest book in this long, superb series ... Told from the alternating perspectives of Joe, Elvis, and various criminals, the story becomes multilayered while the tension builds. Crais never loses control of his clean, clear prose or his ability to sketch fully fleshed characters in a few scenes, with Joe providing the action and Elvis providing the insight ... A taut, exceptional thriller.
