'Chasing Darkness' by Robert Crais
BOOK REVIEW
FOR MONTHS now, "Chasing Darkness," the 12th novel by Robert Crais to feature Los Angeles private investigator Elvis Cole, has been generating lots of anticipatory buzz among fans (some of whom have organized themselves into an online group called the Craisies). What is it about the Elvis Cole books -- whose first volume, "The Monkey's Raincoat," was published 21 years ago -- that keeps readers wanting more?
The answer lies in a shrewd mixture of consistency and novelty. As is the case with many a classic detective, there are things about Cole that never change. For years, he's lived alone in a hillside A-frame off Mulholland Drive, where he practices taekwondo and watches red-tailed hawks from his deck. He's fond of a stray black cat that bites his visitors and drinks his beer.
He has a perennially unsettled love life: His longtime girlfriend, Lucy Chenier, recently moved back to her native Louisiana, maybe for good. As an investigator, Cole is always getting himself in trouble, infuriating police and criminals alike with his smart mouth and his dogged independence. Just as often, he's rescued from certain death by his best friend and crime-solving partner, a laconic but imposing ex-cop named Joe Pike.
Crais' style throughout all the Elvis Cole novels is as constant as his hero. He delivers sleek, pacy thrillers that, in accordance with Elmore Leonard's advice, leave out the parts that readers tend to skip. The action mostly swerves around a crowded Los Angeles that's as precisely charted as a Thomas Guide. And Crais is as meticulous in describing the tasks performed by all kinds of people involved in crime work, including coroner investigators, lawyers, federal agents and police officers.
While Crais is smart enough not to mess with these core elements, his fiction has evolved. In recent books, he's exposed the tragic pasts of both Cole and Pike, adding a soulful dimension that had me blubbering at the end of "The Last Detective" and rooting for the damaged heroes in "L.A. Requiem" and "The Watchman." He's also made regulars of a few other characters, including Carol Starkey, a bomb-squad expert whom Crais first introduced in "Demolition Angel," and geeky LAPD criminalist John Chen, who provides comic relief when wiseacre Cole isn't in the mood to joke around.
In "Chasing Darkness," Crais turns the spotlight away from Pike, whose presence dominated 2007's "The Watchman," and points it once again toward Cole. Crais also abandons the back stories here, returning to the linear plotting that propelled his older novels.
