What's in this book
- Robert Crais's 2015 novel - Elvis Cole and Joe Pike join LAPD K-9 officer Scott James and Maggie
- Cross-over volume bringing together Crais's two long-running series
- 400 pages of multi-POV construction across the Elvis Cole and Scott James investigators",
- Series continues across the broader Cole, Pike, and James novels
- Luke Daniels audiobook is the definitive audio production
- For readers of the broader Cole and Pike series, Suspect, and contemporary American thrillers
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The Promise is the Robert Crais novel that crossed his Suspect standalone (with Scott James and Maggie the K-9 dog) into his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series. The case has Cole hired to find a missing scientist, and the investigation entangles him with Scott and Maggie, who have been working similar territory for the LAPD.
What Crais does in this book is integrate the Maggie chapters into the larger Cole-and-Pike sequence without losing the careful sensory work that made Suspect extraordinary. Maggie's POV scenes are still the best part. Pike's relationship with the dog is one of the most unexpectedly affecting things Crais has written.
The thriller plot is the chassis. The Maggie-and-Pike material is the heart.
Five stars. One of the genuine pleasures of late-period Crais. Read Suspect first if you have not.
Related reads
If you liked The Promise: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel
Demolition Angel
by Robert Crais
Robert Crais's 2000 standalone. A LAPD bomb squad detective with a damaged past and a serial bomber. One of the best police procedurals of its decade.
Suspect
by Robert Crais
Robert Crais's standalone with K-9 dog Maggie and ex-Marine handler Scott James. The book that broke me and most other Crais readers I know.
Chasing Darkness
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The 11th Elvis Cole. Robert Crais writing a cold-case sequel to one of his previous victories. A genuinely difficult moral problem.
Hostage
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Robert Crais's 2001 standalone. A small-town California police chief, three teenagers in a wrong house, and a hostage situation that escalates into something else.
The Two Minute Rule
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A Robert Crais standalone outside the Cole/Pike series. An ex-bank-robber father searching for his estranged son's killer. Crais doing classic noir without his regulars.
The Lincoln Lawyer
by Michael Connelly
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly 2005 review. Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney who works out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, takes a case that pulls him into something larger. The novel that launched a series and a film franchise.
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