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| Chasing Darkness: An Elvis Cole Novel (Elvis Cole) | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Crais
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy Used: $4.49
You Save: $21.46 (83%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  71 reviews
Sales Rank: 3472
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0743281640
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743281645
ASIN: 0743281640
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Elvis Cole--on the case again....WOO HOO!!!!! July 1, 2008
7 out of 13 found this review helpful
As all Elvis Cole readers know, Robert Crais has put him through a real wringer as of late. Broken heart, broken bones and a near-broken spirit have tested The World's Greatest Detective in the last few books.
And we loved it, of course.
So, if we tell you that, in Chasing Darkness, Crais has crafted a less Elvis-centric tale of Detective and Case, assume please that we are doing it with all kinds of YAY!!
A crucial element to any series is the ability to change pace and still move forward, and this installment does just that.
Crais immediately sets the scene: During a brush-fire evac, LAPD discovers the apparent suicide of one Lionel Byrd. We learn that, some years prior, Elvis helped clear Lionel of a murder charge. Evidence from the death scene tends to incriminate Byrd in that murder and many others.
Elvis is visited by a couple of bitter detectives that inform him of the current facts, including that two of the murders Byrd is implicated in occurred after Elvis cleared him, and of course Elvis demands to be dealt in. Cops say no way, conflict ensues, and we are rolling!!
Crais does a great job of refreshing the basic skeleton of the Cole series by bringing back the elements we've always appreciated--Elvis disrespects authority, Elvis gets the crap kicked out of him, Elvis Goes Detecting. We've always loved the set pieces Crais constructs when he send Elvis door-to-door to find out stuff. It's when we get to see a little bit of how Crais views the world and the people in it. He gives us the taste, and then doesn't linger, as Chasing Darkness is a very fast-paced story with twists and turns worthy of the roads in Elvis' beloved Laurel Canyon.
As the story unreels, Elvis finds himself stalked, beaten, and accused of murder. Just another day for World's Greatest.
Crais is using the story to get at a couple of notions, primarily how we process grief--particularly when it becomes a desire for revenge. Elvis is, in fact, chasing various kinds of darkness. Some of it his own, but primarily that of others, and the essence of the book is what happens when an open soul--Elvis--offers himself to souls that are stricken and closed. Even when those souls hold some pretty damn malevolent intentions towards his own.
The connections that Elvis makes in these situations will warm your heart. But don't get too comfy, cuz you know that Elvis will soon be abused again.
And that's just how we like it!!!
 Elvis Cole returns July 1, 2008
6 out of 12 found this review helpful
Southern California is burning in the latest Elvis Cole novel, leading police to the body of Lionel Byrd while evacuating Laurel Canyon residents endangered by the fire. Evidence at the scene of Byrd's apparent suicide incriminates him in the murder of seven people, and the kicker is that two of them happened after Elvis Cole helped clear the man of one of the killings. Naturally, a guilt-wracked Cole is drawn into the case and soon finds evidence that Byrd's "suicide" may have been staged and that the police are covering it up. Several twists and turns keep things interesting, and Cole's partner Joe Pike (who's always reminded me of Spenser's Hawk) is along for the ride, which is darker than some of the previous Elvis Cole entries. I like the fact that in "Chasing Darkness" Crais continues to move away from his lighthearted, wisecrack-filled mysteries to a more hard-boiled styled with weightier themes and more powerful stories. Don't get me wrong though, "Chasing Darkness" is far from morose or heavy-handed - it's an exciting, unpredictable thriller featuring two of the most colorful detectives in current crime fiction.
Also recommended: A Stranger Lies There by Stephen Santogrossi- a hard-boiled thriller set in the desert around Palm Springs, it won the Malice Domestic Award for best first mystery. I actually discovered this book last year in an Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine review alongside Crais' novel The Watchman. The review stated: "Santogrossi writes powerfully and movingly about a man who has paid for his mistakes only to find out that he's not through paying and never will be. An author to watch."
Awesome! Elvis is back! July 2, 2008
6 out of 13 found this review helpful
Chasing Darkness brings back Elvis Cole, the "Worlds Greatest Detective". Not to mention Joe Pike and everyone that you've grown to like / love in the Elvis Cole novels. The story starts of fast and furious with one of Elvis's past assignments possibly coming back to bite him. When the police accuse Elvis of helping free a serial killer, you know that Elvis Cole won't stop until he's figured out what really happened.
To me, there's something really special about the Elvis Cole. You know that he's going to do the right thing, no matter how much it hurts. And he's going to hurt if finding the truth hurts others. He's a great crusader and it makes reading about him so enjoyable. Contrast him with his foil of Joe Pike and you've got a great team. Now, roll that all up with many of the other characters developed over the Elvis Cole novels and you've got a very enjoyable read.
I couldn't put this book down. I was halfway through and really found that I wanted to savor this novel. I really enjoy the way that Crais describes Los Angeles and how the characters navigate the city. And it definitely is more enjoyable to me having lived in LA at one point in my life. But beyond that, I found that I could not put the book down. I wanted to know more. And even when I was pretty sure who the villian was, I still didn't want to stop reading. This is a well written novel. My only negative was that the characters didn't develop as much as in other novels but I can live without that for once. Read and enjoy. :)
Totally Fun Summer Read July 15, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Personally, I was glad to have Elvis back at the center of the story again, and thrilled that Lucy was relegated to nothing more than a single phone call. Joe Pike takes a back door as well, but that didn't bother me this time. I think for any of these mystery writers who have had characters that continue in multiple books it becomes a huge challenge to make the plots fresh while moving the characters forward. I think Crais does it here, and for me this was a page turning fun summer thrill ride.
World's Greatest really IS. July 3, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
It seems like a long, long time since I've read an Elvis Cole story. The last one was 'The Forgotten Man,' an elegiac tale of fathers, sons, and families "gang oft agley." The end of that book left a huge opening for developing Cole's private life, his love life in particular. Author Crais wisely avoided that opening, for in so doing it is likely this magical character would have descended into Soap Opera Hell. Instead, Crais gives the reader a retro-Elvis. Not so retro that we lose sight of the anguish Elvis has endured over the last few books, not so retro that Elvis retreats into childish wisecracking (at least not often), but retro in the sense of a pure mystery. The World's Greatest Detective is about to prove that claim is not mere hyperbole. Elvis must find out whether he caused the deaths of two women by helping to free a man accused of murder. He takes us to college, How To Detect 101, with interviews and clues and hours-days of sheer leg work. Watching Elvis slowly begin to peel back the layers of this wonderfully plotted puzzle is an education in and of itself. Watching him do this while he maintains his integrity and carefully considers the effect of his work on others, while he leans on partner Joe Pike without ever treating Joe like his personal crutch, is as deft a piece of characterization as Crais has ever achieved.
Father-son relationships, a favorite theme of Crais's, are pretty much missing in this book, but his other favorite theme, that people are seldom what they seem, gets star treatment here. From a character (Ivy) who at first seems to lend little more to the plot than a very slight clue, to the hidden dark persona of the killer, and the many characters in between, Crais keeps surprising the reader with the depth to these characters. Some them resonate. Among my favorites are the family of one murder victim: The mother embittered by grief, the father quietly drowning in it, the three sons needing to take some revenge for their mother's sake as well as their own. The brief scenes among a family ravaged by the murder of their beloved daughter/sister are in sharp contrast to the scene where Cole meets the mother of another victim, a mother who thinks her 'bad' daughter got what she deserved.
I must also mention the quality of the prose. Not only does Crais conjure up a Los Angeles so believable one can almost see the smoke and smell the fires, but he never makes a misstep: No purple prose here, no matter the angst within a given scene Crais never overplays his hand. The prose suits the characters. I believe that this is how Elvis Cole thinks, that this is how he would describe what he sees, that this is how he talks. And that a guy like Joe Pike would always have his back. As always, Crais gives the reader more than a by-the-numbers mystery. He gives us a whole world, with its good and bad, its laughter and sorrow, its daylight and darkness. Bravo!
7/24/2008 Addendum: After reading some of the less flattering reviews here I'm wondering about what it is readers expect of the author. Someone thought the characterization was poor. Say what? They can't have been reading THIS book, had to be something by James Patterson instead. This entire books hinges on Elvis's personality and how he reacts to other, very different, personalities. I think Crais nailed it. Other readers seemed unhappy that Crais hasn't turned 3D characters like Chen and Starkey into the kind of caricatures that Janet Evanovich has done with her characters. Some folks apparently want the seriousness of the last few books to turn into a regular soap opera. I don't get that at all. This really is a terrific book, because there are damned few writers who can combine "page-turning" with quality prose, and keep a highly-detailed, tightly plotted story with in-depth characterization from going off the rails. "Chasing Darkness" is one of Crais's finest works to date. It's a shame to let any pre-conceived notions get in the way of a good read.
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