Thursday, February 22, 2007

In Pike We Trust

Just one day after the Los Angeles Times brought us a pretty glowing profile of novelist Robert Crais, January Magazine contributing editor Anthony Rainone delivers a no less laudatory assessment of Crais’ The Watchman.

This new book finds Joe Pike, L.A. private eye Elvis Cole’s ex-marine and part-time mercenary sidekick, in the driver’s seat for once, trying to protect a spoiled, angry rich girl who’s also a federal witness against mobsters and money-launderers. The decision to shift focus from Cole, whose adventures over the years have won him acclaim and honors (including the 2006 Ross Macdonald Award), might have been a risk; but Rainone thinks it was worthwhile. “This reviewer has run out of superlatives to describe Crais’ immense talent,” he writes, “but suffice it to say that The Watchman is a turbo-charged ride that further pushes its author into the stratosphere of crime-fiction immortality.

You’ll find the full critique here.

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