Rex’s reviews of anything (but mostly books)

Three years ago Lionel “Lonnie” Byrd had dodged a bullet. Charged in the murder of a young prostitute, Byrd had been released from custody thanks to legwork by The World’s Greatest Detective, Elvis Cole. Just a couple of nights ago, though, a self-administered bullet had proved un-dodgeable. And on the table between Byrd’s rigid hands, spread out before his sightless eyes, lay the evidence that Cole must’ve been wrong. A scrapbook filled with grisly Polaroids clearly placed the dead man at the scene of Yvonne Burdett’s murder… and six other murders, too. It sure looked as if Cole’s detective work had set a serial killer free to continue practicing his nasty hobby, a little fact the LAPD detectives on the Byrd task force seem disinclined to let him forget. Ever.

If you’re The World’s Greatest Detective (WGD), though, you’re probably unaccustomed to second-guessing yourself. Naturally, Cole opens his own investigation; and, naturally, it soon becomes clear that there is something decidedly rotten in the state of Denmark. A few of the details of Byrd’s alleged suicide don’t quite add up; and certain cops on the case seem to have done some remarkably sloppy detective work. Then, too, the task force’s rush to judgment seems even more rushed than would be usual for a media-frenzied case. What – or, perhaps more to the point, who – is a deputy chief who’s personally running the investigation’s task force hiding? It definitely looks as if Cole, the ultimate outsider, has his work cut out for him this time.

With his usual sidekick Joe Pike and his new sidekick Carol Starkey both along for the ride, it seems that Elvis Cole might be able to spend eternity Chasing Darkness without worrying about his back. Regardless of the strength of his partnership with Pike or his newfound mutual-respect-society relationship with Starkey, there remains the issue of that three-year-old case hanging over his head. Did Cole bungle the investigation like some of the cops are saying? Or is he really the WGD and had it right all along? The Hawaiian-shirted LA detective with the cherry ‘66 ‘Vette and the ever-insouciant attitude does not, apparently, take the hint of failure well. In the usual manner of “outsider” private eyes with an “insider” past, Cole gets out there and detects rings around the so-called professionals on the case, even though his office ends up trashed and Pike has to pull his chestnuts out of the fire a time or two.

Fans of Elvis Cole creator Robert Crais get their money’s worth in Chasing Darkness, although the more ninja-loving among them will likely lament the paucity of appearances by Pike. That’s even though in his few pages, Pike might have as much dialogue as in all previous Cole novels combined. Much of Pike’s usual column-inch allotment has been passed instead to newly-minted homicide dick Carol Starkey (formerly of LAPD’s bomb squad, see Demolition Angel); a trend that began with The Forgotten Man. In Cole’s latest case, however, it doesn’t matter that Crais swaps Pike’s blank stares and tattooed delts for Starkey’s wisecracks and chain-smoking: he’s concentrated on spinning out a plot that might give new meaning to “convoluted.”

Filled with the usual motley assortment of wackos and incompetent cops and given several whiplash-inducing plot twists; in lesser hands Chasing Darkness might well have seemed contrived. The manner in which Crais has built a plot sans illogical leaps and without a single visit from her highness, the Coincidence Fairy, is part of the skill and control that separate the merely average mystery writer from the good ones. Robert Crais is one of the good ones, and Chasing Darkness is the latest evidence.

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Buy Chasing Darkness at amazon.com