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The Forgotten Man (Elvis Cole #10)

4.03 of 5 stars 4.03 · rating details · 3,827 ratings · 176 reviews

Elvis Cole is back...

With his acclaimed bestsellers, Hostage (a New York Times Notable Book) and Demolition Angel, Robert Crais drew raves for his unstoppable pacing, edgy characterizations, and cinematic prose. Now, in The Last Detective, Crais returns to his signature character, Los Angeles private investigator Elvis Cole, in a masterful page-turner that probes the meani...more

Paperback, 368 pages

Published January 31st 2006 by Ballantine Books (first published December 14th 1988)

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Jan 24, 2013 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, crime-mystery, detectives, elvis-cole

Recent events haven’t been kind to Elvis Cole, and he’s moping around the house in the middle of the night when he gets a phone call from the police telling him that a man murdered in an alley claimed to be Elvis’s long lost father with his dying breath.

Well, if that doesn’t cheer him up, nothing will.

Elvis has never had a real clue about who his father was and thinks that the man was just another wack-a-doo that has come out of the woodwork following an unwelcome amount of publicity after his l...more Recent events haven’t been kind to Elvis Cole, and he’s moping around the house in the middle of the night when he gets a phone call from the police telling him that a man murdered in an alley claimed to be Elvis’s long lost father with his dying breath.

Well, if that doesn’t cheer him up, nothing will.

Elvis has never had a real clue about who his father was and thinks that the man was just another wack-a-doo that has come out of the woodwork following an unwelcome amount of publicity after his last case. Still, even the possibility that the victim may have been his pops inspires Elvis to start trying to figure out who the man was and brings up a lot of old feelings as well as unknowingly putting him on a collision course with a killer.

Once again Crais serves up an intriguing plot that zig-zags in unexpected directions. The previous two books, L.A. Requiem and The Last Detective, along with this one have filled a lot of the history of Elvis and his partner Joe Pike so that now they seem like fully formed characters with some serious damage in their pasts that cause them to hide behind the personas of smart ass detective and his bad ass buddy.

Another thing I liked in this is that the bad guy is crazy. I don’t mean crazy in the clichéd Hannibal Lector way where the serial killer is insane but also a genius and capable of making intricate plans. I mean crazy in the sense of crazy town banana pants. I mean this son-of-a-bitch is CRAZY in the kind of random way where he’ll convince himself that invisible assassins are sneaking up on him, and there’s no telling when he may explode into unpredictable and brutal violence. After so many portrayals of the insane villains also being brilliant in crime fiction, it was refreshingly terrifying to have a true Crazy McCrazyperson with poor impulse control and a shotgun lurking around.

My one complaint on this one requires a massive spoiler. I’m giving up the end of the book here so don’t click if you don’t want to know. (view spoiler).

This is a series in which the author has managed to raise the bar with almost every book.
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Nov 11, 2012 Dan Schwent rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-and-mystery, man-tears, 2012

An old man is gunned down in an alley and his last words were that he was looking for his son, Elvis Cole. Was the old man really the father Elvis never knew? That's what Elvis is trying to find out. But will he be able to live with what he finds?

Much like The Last Detective, Robert Crais digs into Elvis Cole's past with the Forgotten Man. In the wake of the events of The Last Detective, the possible appearance of Elvis' unknown father drags him out of his depression and sets him into motion. It...more

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Nov 12, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

"The Forgotten Man" does for Elvis Cole what "L.A. Requiem" did for Joe Pike. This book, like "Requiem" moves beyond simple detective fiction to add more depth to the character of Elvis Cole. It is a nice evolution. Crais' initial books in this series were for the most part of the Ross MacDonald vein -- quick sketch characters thrown into a twisting plot. Nothing at all wrong with that, and Crais is a master. However, beginning with "Requiem" Crais seems to want to expand into a the more general...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Harry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: detective-mystery

Ok, a few rambling thoughts on Robert Crais. Who is this guy, where'd he come from, how'd he get so popular? Well the first thing to know is that Crais is not from California at all. He is a native of Louisiana, grew up in a blue collar family, and read his first crime novel The Little Sister when he was 15. And that's all it took. Chandler gave him his love for writing. Other authors that have inspired him were Hammett, Hemingway (seems like that's true of all the crime writers), Parker, and St...more Ok, a few rambling thoughts on Robert Crais. Who is this guy, where'd he come from, how'd he get so popular? Well the first thing to know is that Crais is not from California at all. He is a native of Louisiana, grew up in a blue collar family, and read his first crime novel The Little Sister when he was 15. And that's all it took. Chandler gave him his love for writing. Other authors that have inspired him were Hammett, Hemingway (seems like that's true of all the crime writers), Parker, and Steinbeck (huh?).

How'd he get so popular? In short: television and L.A. Requim. Robert Crais has a very impressive resume as a screenwriter for such television series as Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice (damn, I loved that show too!), Cagney & Lacey. But what hits home the most with Crais himself is his work on the 4 hour mini series Cross of Fire which is about the Ku Klux Klan and is probably more relevant to his home state of Louisiana than it is to Hollywood. Following a growing dissatsifaction of a screen writer's constraints, Crais began writing novels. L.A. Requim, which is the 8th Elvis Cole novel, is what landed him as an author that defied all genres and in it outsurpassed even the legendary Ross Macdonald.

Enough about Crais, the guy's good. So, what about Elvis Cole? Naming someone Elvis had to have been a fairly deliberate decision. To me the name seems iconic, Warholish, Disneylandish, a bit theatrical if not cynical. In fact his novels and trinkets therein are suffused with cultural icons: Spider Man mug, Jiminy Cricket (latent fantasy of wanting to be Peter Pan?), and his yellow Corvette. Even his slogan seems hamstrung with Hollywood's obsession with icons: Elvis Cole is The world's Greatest Detective! But in reality there's nothing ridiculous about Cole: he's tough, honest, ponders morality and ambiguity and hypocrasies while staring out the balcony window in his office.Yes, he's cynical, a smart ass, a comic relief in many ways...but behind the seeming humor lies a Dan Wesson .38, the Vietnam War, martial arts and his biggest gun of all: Joe Pike.

Joe Pike, the avenging angel, is a tool used sparingly by Crais. Use him too much and you wonder why he isn't the main character (we know Crais has struggled with this as he produced 4 separate novels featuring Pike as the hero); use him too little and you start wondering why the big guns aren't being pulled out by Elvis. What you want to do is increase the anxiety level of the reader towards the hero, not get the reader frustrated with him. Crais handles this expertly...and uses Pike to increase the anticipation in readers.

The Elvis Cole novels should be considered hard boiled detectives primarily in that Crais deviates from the traditional Romantic tradition found in detective stories and crime fiction by introducing Cole as a detective with a decidedly cynical attitude towards the emotions (i.e. apprehension, horror, terror, and awe such as are found in other crime and thriller stories). And yet, we find sprinkled throughout the books insightful observations of the world as seen through Elvis's eyes. In the following passage, Elvis observes the effects of dry brush fires raging through L.A.:

Picture the detective at work in his office, fourth floor, Hollywood, as the Devil's Wind freight-trains down from the desert. Though dry and brutally harsh, the desert wind is clean. It pushes the smog south to the sea and scrubs the sky to a crystalline blue. The air, jittery from the heat, rises in swaying tendrils like kelp from the seabed, making the city shimmer. We are never more beautiful than when we are burning.

Like I said, it really came together following the publication of his 8th Elvis Cole novel. Pike his side kick, Lou Poitras (Cole's detective friend) gruffy as ever, shifting view points, a relaxation of Cole's zany character...it all came together following L.A. Requim. So, believe me. All in all, you will not be disappointed with the Elvis Cole series. There are a lot of these novels so sit back and enjoy! I most certainly did.

As with all series reviews, this one covers all the Elvis Cole books. So if you've read this review of mine than you've read 'em all.(less)

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Sep 27, 2011 Ami rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cole-and-pike-series

More insight to Elvis Cole's character ... and in a sense, to the depth of his friendship with Pike, especially during the last chapters. I will get to that later.

This time, a murdered man in an alley, brings Cole to look further into his past, who his father is. The murdered man claimed to be Cole's father. I love the scenes of Cole's past, the part where he ran away few times to search for his father (whom his mother said to be a "human canonball"). The case takes a different turn (it always i...more

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Apr 25, 2010 David rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: completed

I usually would give an Elvis Cole novel a higher rating than two stars. The author, Crais, writes well enough and always manages to create an intriguing mystery and move it along quite well. This one is no exception-- as a strange man is killed in Los Angeles and his last words are a statement that private eye Elvis Cole is his son. This, at first, makes Cole a suspect in the murder. Believe me, the mystery is much more compelling than it first appears.

However, this novel suffers from multiple...more

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Jan 12, 2012 Tim Warner rated it 3 of 5 stars

After the consistent heights and thrills of reading Robert Crais, I am less than overly enthusiastic about the Forgotten Man. I am about a third of the way through it and not as compelled as by all of his other books which I have read. I will not abandon this, as I have frequently abandoned other books. But I will ask this question: How does it happen, i.e. what is the process that a writer goes through as he consistently hits the top and then falls short of his exceptional previous winning feat...more

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Nov 19, 2010 Jerry rated it 2 of 5 stars

We’re slowly reading through the Crais booklist; we think this is our fourth Elvis Cole, but by no means our favorite. While the plot is engaging (about a man who claims to have been Elvis’ father), and one of the ultimate perps not at all expected, there were several things we felt really detracted from a better reading experience.

First, we found the many different scene changes and story telling from various character’s point of view a major distraction – and it the end, still not sure we’ve g...more

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Apr 20, 2008 Arthur rated it 3 of 5 stars

A man is murdered in an alley, claiming to be Elvis Cole's long-lost father. Elvis tries to figure out if he is and who killed him. Featuring a completely insane murderer. The plot's not that interesting, though the killer is a surprise. Crais tries to put some LA feel into the book, but it doesn't come together.

Not one of Crais best books, though I was hooked enough to finish it in two days.

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Nov 06, 2012 Danielle Tremblay rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: thrillers

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. One of the best of the Elvis Cole Series.
Six months after nearly losing everything to the men who kidnapped his girlfriend's ten-year-old son, Elvis Cole is slowly rebuilding his life when he receives an ominous call from the LAPD. An unidentified body has been found in a seedy Los Angeles motel and Elvis is needed urgently at the scene. When he arrives to identify the dead man, cops scrutinize Cole's reaction, but Elvis is unable to help -- he has never seen the man before. Finally, Elvis is t...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it · review of another edition

The 10th Elvis Cole novel earns well above average praise from most critics. In the series' latest, Crais develops one of his most complex characters yet by expanding on the detective's painful childhood. But The Forgotten Man does have flaws, especially in comparison to the earlier, and stronger, Cole novels. "All the elements are present to make another thrilling Crais mystery," writes the Chicago Sun-Times, "but the spark ... is missing." In other words, longtime fans will appreciate this qui

...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Mark Soone rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, Crais hits yet another one out of the park!

Cole is back in action this time, awakened at 4 am, with a call telling him that the father he never knew is dead. Cole does not quite know what to make of this, and begins a dark journey in search of the identity of this man, and why he would think that he was his son. The book starts with a random murder that does not seem to tye in with the story untill it is nearly done....plenty of action and like the previous installment is a little darker...more

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Nov 14, 2012 Shannon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Really more like 3 1/2. Was obvious from the beginning who dunnit and that was most likely the point of the prelude to the book - so the story regarding Cole and his history of wanting to find out who his human cannonball dad is is interesting and good background but it seemed that some obvious clues were overlooked before the culmination of Cole getting hisself shot up. Pike is not a major character here but I do like the loyalty he and Cole have for one another. Also, the little wierdness with...more

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Feb 28, 2009 Susie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who has already read several previous Cole novels

Recommended to Susie by: no one, I saw it in the Borders

I can't say I have ever read an Elvis Cole novel I didn't like. Having said that, this is not the very best (I think LA Requiem is the best), but it is still engaging and interesting. Yes, Elvis is no longer the same "world's greatest detective' disguised as a young wise-cracking buffoon. But how could he be after all he has been through? I was glad to see Lucy nearly banished (the weakest character in his recurring group of characters). And some insight into his young life that sheds light on h...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Bruce rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mmm

Elvis Cole, PI, gets a call from the police. A man was killed in an alley, but just before he dies, he claims to be Cole's father. Cole is initially a suspect, then ends up working in parallel to the police to solve the case, partly because he wonders if the man could have been his father. Not bad, not great. I had read a couple of other Elvis Cole books. I think I like books that have his partner, Joe Pike, as the main character. Some of the flashbacks of Cole as a boy hunting for his father, a...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Momo rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have become a huge fan of Crais' L.A. mysteries, whether they feature his crack team of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike or they are his "stand-alones." These books are now my go-to reading when I have a long plane trip to make from coast to coast because they immediately grab me with their snappy dialog, explosive action, and easy-to-root-for characters. By far the best, IMHO, is "L.A. Requieum," but this is a solid novel, which gives readers more insight into Elvis's past and his search for a father...more

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Jan 13, 2011 Charlie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

Hard to put down this story.

This is my second Robert Crais novel, and if I'm right I have somewhere between 9 or 10 books to go. With that said then I have some excellent books to look forward to. I thought that "The Forgotten Man" was well written, and the story flowed evenly from one chapter to the next. By midway in the story I found it hard to put the book down, but I did and picked it up the very next day. There was plenty of action surrounding the turbulent life of the private detective,...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Scott Brazil rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great read! Wonderful, fast-paced plot. I was surprised by one major twist though, in hindsight, I should have seen it coming (this speaks well to Crais' ability to create suspense). The character development, especially in terms of Elvis' past, was wonderful. Also, even though i am not big on romance in novels, Starkey's feelings for Elvis and the love triangle set up via Lucy's character also added depth to this book. would have liked to see more Joe Pike than was in this story, but it still w...more

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Jun 29, 2011 Darcy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, mystery

I liked this book, but felt like there wasn't a big connection for Elvis. Yes, the man dying said he was his father as he was dying, but there was just something off for me.

Elvis was still mourning the loss of his relationship with Lucy due to the crap of the last book. I get why Lucy left, but I really hated her for coming back and giving Elvis a very small sliver of hope.

I felt sorry for Stuckey, she was in a hard spot. She knew Elvis wasn't ready to move on and did her best to hold her feelin...more

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May 06, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-and-suspense

Elvis Cole is back...

With his acclaimed bestsellers, Hostage (a New York Times Notable Book) and Demolition Angel, Robert Crais drew raves for his unstoppable pacing, edgy characterizations, and cinematic prose. Now, in The Last Detective, Crais returns to his signature character, Los Angeles private investigator Elvis Cole, in a masterful page-turner that probes the meaning of family and the burdens of the past.

Los Angeles, 3:58 A.M.: Elvis Cole receives the phone call he's been waiting for sin...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Amanda Spake rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries-cops-detectives

I've read everything by Crais since discovering "The Monkeys Raincoat" a long time ago, One day, in a mystery bookstore (yes, we used to have those once upon a time) in talking with one of the proprietors about being out of things to read, she said, “Well, you’ve read Robert Crais, right?”

Well, no, I hadn’t. I read “The Monkey’s Raincoat” in about two days, recommended it to everybody I knew, and now wait for each new Crais novel to make an appearance.

Crais’ newest book, out last month, is "Tak...more I've read everything by Crais since discovering "The Monkeys Raincoat" a long time ago, One day, in a mystery bookstore (yes, we used to have those once upon a time) in talking with one of the proprietors about being out of things to read, she said, “Well, you’ve read Robert Crais, right?”

Well, no, I hadn’t. I read “The Monkey’s Raincoat” in about two days, recommended it to everybody I knew, and now wait for each new Crais novel to make an appearance.

Crais’ newest book, out last month, is "Taken.” This is the best book Crais has written in years. I would rank this book right up there with my favorite Crais novel, “Demolition Angel," the story of Starkey, a lonely, difficult and brave cop on the LAPD bomb squad. (If you haven’t read “Demolition Angel,” wait no longer.)

"Taken," is about the desperation, degradation, and corruption of illegal immigration and human trafficking into this country. I have no doubt that much of what is in the novel is based on fact. There are millions of people so desperate to come to this country to make less than a living wage at jobs Americans don't want, that they will bear unspeakable burdens for the fantasy of a better, more prosperous life. The lucky ones survive and make their way into an underground economy that keeps certain segments of our food, agricultural, construction, service, clothing, and sex industries functioning. Along the way, hundreds of thousands of these not-yet-Americans are bought, sold, cheated, threatened, abused, or killed. "Taken" is about some of the most brutal and corrupt aspects of that shadow world.

Detective Elvis Cole is hired to find the bright, beautiful college-age daughter of a woman who several decades earlier entered the U.S. illegally and proceeded to build a solid economic future for herself and her family. She started a small manufacturing business specializing in sports uniforms, hats, shirts, trophies, and all manner of sports-tchotchkes. Hers has become the go-to company for many professional, amateur and school sports teams. That's a lot of teams - and the company is doing fine. She has, in turn, given a start to large numbers of people, especially women with families, who entered the U.S. just as she did, with hope, and little else.

Her daughter, a talented student, interested in immigration, has always been curious about the details of her mother’s past. For school, the girls have been researching the coyotes that bring people in from Mexico and Central America, and the hardships the immigrants endure. On a weekend trip to the desert of Southern California near the Mexican border, she and her Anglo boyfriend are accidentally rounded up with a large group of illegals by a band of smugglers and bandits. The two young Americans are taken to a brutal prison camp, a place resembling a Nazi concentration camp more than anything else.

Cole with his partner, the ever-vigilant Joe Pike, figure out what’s happened to the girl, about the same time her mother is contacted by the bandits and asked for a fairly small amount of money. Cole, by now, has learned that she needs to pay and keep paying if the girl is to remain alive long enough for him to track her down. Cole finds a way to contact the bandits, posing as a labor broker looking to buy 30 immigrants to work in California’s agricultural fields, but before he can rescue the two young people, he’s unmasked and taken hostage as well. Armed guards are everywhere, and the illegals imprisoned in several houses around the area are being systemically murdered, once their families run out of cash to pay to keep them alive. One by one, Cole sees bodies of Indians, Koreans, Mexicans and others being carried out of the houses to a huge body dump in the desert. And Cole is clearly next….

But nothing is hopeless when Cole and Pike are on the case, as things race to their high octane conclusion. Pike uncovers a very big secret that shifts the balance of power. But even Joe Pike can’t pull this off alone, and realizes he’s going to have to make a deal with the devil—in this case, LA’s Korean mob—if he is to save Cole’s life and rescue the girl and her boyfriend.

In the end, Elvis and Joe do what needs to be done, and Crais has again provided top-quality literary entertainment—with an important story about the economic lives of others we Americans need to read about more often.
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Mar 29, 2009 Creative A rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of slightly darker crime, tortured heroes, and plenty of murder

Shelves: favorite-crime-authors, series-i-follow, books-read-in-2009

A tattooed man is shot in an alley and dies, gasping that he is trying to find his lost son, Elvis Cole. But Elvis is still torn up about Lucy and Ben, who left him in The Last Detective. With his emotions on edge, and his confidence at an all time low, Elvis takes the case. Is the man his father? Doubtful. Was he involved in some bad business before he died? Absolutely certain.

Lots of dark secrets come out in this one, lots of wounds are re-opened, and the plot becomes a little bit like a domi...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Gerald Sinstadt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

Elvis Cole and Pike are a formidable team but here their resourcefulness is tested to the limit. The startling opening - not to give away too much - sets Cole on a quest which is more personal than professional. The author plays both sides by interweaving the thoughts and actions of the villain, but never reveals enough to slacken the suspense.

Possibly not the very best of Robert Crais but engaging enough to linger in the memory - and send one back for more of these two tough guys.

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Jul 30, 2010 (Kelly)~DemonLover~ Oakes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-detective-suspense

This book was given to me in Audio form and I had no idea who the author was or the quality of his writing.
I was very pleased with this book. The author's way of writing is quirky, smart-mouthed and delightful. This thriller, did just that. Not often am I kept on the edge of my seat and unable to guess the direction of the story and not know who the killer is from the start. Bravo, a book of suspense, angst and intrigue. I just might have to check out his other works!

A good read.

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Jul 23, 2011 Joe rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not too bad. The main character, Elvis Cole, learns that a recent murder victim made a statement while dying claiming to be his long lost father. Despite his disbelief, Cole investigates the murder to find out who this man was and why he would claim to be his father.
The action is well paced and the story is filled with enjoyable characters. The plot is not bad, if you can get past the idea that a DNA test would have cut the book by half. After all is said and done, what you end up with is a fast...more

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Jun 15, 2009 George rated it 5 of 5 stars

#10 in the Elvis Cole mystery series. This is the first of the series that I have read and if it is typical of the others, this is a good mystery series to read. Cole is a Los Angeles PI with an extremely tough partner. He is brought into a murder investigation as a possible suspect of a man who said he was looking for his son, Elvis Cole. Cole becomes involved in the investigation as a result.

It was an interesting story and good read.

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Oct 02, 2012 Yeva rated it 5 of 5 stars

I cried during this book. I can't believe it! I rarely cry over a book, but this one had me in its grip all the way through. This story kept me wondering all the way through. The questions kept popping up...like "Hey, what about that scene at the first of the book? and "When we he finally get it?" and so on. I enjoyed the scenes with Starkey and Cole, even though I don't want them to get together...I like Starkley, though. Anyho...this is a great read. Don't miss it!

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Feb 14, 2010 Marti rated it 5 of 5 stars

I always rate books by Robert Crais high, because he has great characters and plots. It is hard to beat a story with private investigator Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike. As usual, there are diabolical villains and twists and turns in the plot. The Forgotten Man refers to one of the characters calling him Elvis's father. It seems that Elvis never knew who his father was, and his mother was something of a flake.

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Jan 23, 2012 Kerry rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Renewed my love of Crais. Listened to this in two days. The narration was clear and done well. Did not feel I missed anything and I never drifted from the story line which is sometimes the case when I can't put a story down. Lobed how the beginning was tied into rest of story at a time when i had almost forgotten about it and never really saw it coming. Will soon be listening to another Crais book.

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May 28, 2009 Andreea rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, 10th-grade

Unfortunately, even though Robert Crais' books don't make up a series, he uses the same characters and this wasn't the first book he wrote. Therefore, lots of references are made to past books that I don't really get. I think it would have helped if an overview of what happened were included. The characters are amazing. I like the way their personalities are as different as day and night (Cole is cheeky and easygoing, Pike is serious and taciturn, while Starkey is the funniest combination of lov...more

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About Robert Crais

Robert Crais is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. A native of Louisiana, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a blue collar family of oil refinery workers and police officers. He purchased a secondhand paperback of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister when he was fifteen, which inspired his lifelong love of writing, Los Angeles, and the literature of crime fiction....more Robert Crais is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. A native of Louisiana, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a blue collar family of oil refinery workers and police officers. He purchased a secondhand paperback of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister when he was fifteen, which inspired his lifelong love of writing, Los Angeles, and the literature of crime fiction. Other literary influences include Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck.
After years of amateur film-making and writing short fiction, he journeyed to Hollywood in 1976 where he quickly found work writing scripts for such major television series as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, and Miami Vice, as well as numerous series pilots and Movies-of-the-Week for the major networks. He received an Emmy nomination for his work on Hill Street Blues, but is most proud of his 4-hour NBC miniseries, Cross of Fire, which the New York Times declared: "A searing and powerful documentation of the Ku Klux Klan’s rise to national prominence in the 20s."
In the mid-eighties, feeling constrained by the collaborative working requirements of Hollywood, Crais resigned from a lucrative position as a contract writer and television producer in order to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a novelist. His first efforts proved unsuccessful, but upon the death of his father in 1985, Crais was inspired to create Elvis Cole, using elements of his own life as the basis of the story. The resulting novel, The Monkey’s Raincoat, won the Anthony and Macavity Awards and was nominated for the Edgar Award. It has since been selected as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.
Crais conceived of the novel as a stand-alone, but realized that—in Elvis Cole—he had created an ideal and powerful character through which to comment upon his life and times. (See the WORKS section for additional titles.) Elvis Cole’s readership and fan base grew with each new book, then skyrocketed in 1999 upon the publication of L. A. Requiem, which was a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller and forever changed the way Crais conceived of and structured his novels. In this new way of telling his stories, Crais combined the classic ‘first person’ narrative of the American detective novel with flashbacks, multiple story lines, multiple points-of-view, and literary elements to better illuminate his themes. Larger and deeper in scope, Publishers Weekly wrote of L. A. Requiem, "Crais has stretched himself the way another Southern California writer—Ross Macdonald—always tried to do, to write a mystery novel with a solid literary base." Booklist added, "This is an extraordinary crime novel that should not be pigeonholed by genre. The best books always land outside preset boundaries. A wonderful experience."
Crais followed with his first non-series novel, Demolition Angel, which was published in 2000 and featured former Los Angeles Police Department Bomb Technician Carol Starkey. Starkey has since become a leading character in the Elvis Cole series. In 2001, Crais published his second non-series novel, Hostage, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and was a world-wide bestseller. Additionally, the editors of Amazon.com selected Hostage as the #1 thriller of the year. A film adaptation of Hostage was released in 2005, starring Bruce Willis as ex-LAPD SWAT negotiator Jeff Talley.
Elvis Cole returned in 2003 with the publication of The Last Detective, followed by the tenth Elvis Cole novel, The Forgotten Man, in 2005. Both novels explore with increasing depth the natures and characters of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. RC’s third stand-alone novel, The Two Minute Rule, was published in 2006. The eleventh entry in the Elvis Cole series, The Watchman, will be published sometime in 2007.(less)

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The Sentry (Elvis Cole, #12, Joe Pike, #3)

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180993.The_Forgotten_Man?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344368512l/180993.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180993.The_Forgotten_Man?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais[/url]

The Forgotten Man (Elvis Cole #10)

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