L.A. Requiem
Where to buy L.A. Requiem books online?
- ISBN13: 9780345434470
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The day starts like any additional in L.A. The sun burns hot as the Santa Ana winds blow ash from mountain fires to coat the glittering city. But for private investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, is dead, cruelly murdered with a gun shot to the head.
Now Karen’s powerful father calls on Pike (a ex- cop) and his partner, Elvis Cole, to keep an eye on the LAPD as they search for his daughter’s killer–because in the luminous City of Angels, everyone has secrets, and even the mighty blue have something to hide. But what starts as a small procedural hand-holding turns into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. For a dark web of conspiracy threatens to ruin Pike and Cole’s twelve-year friendship–if not their lives. And L.A. just might be singing their dirge.Amazon.com Review
More than 10 years ago, I was shocked to learn that some puerile piece of fluff had won the Edgar for Best Paperback Original, when it was so obvious to me and virtually everyone else in the Western Hemisphere that the award should have gone to The Monkey’s Raincoat, the book that introduced Elvis Cole, private eye, and is to this day one of the most amusing books I’ve ever read.
The terrific Elvis Cole series has grown through the years, each book better than the last, but nothing prepared me for the quantum leap (yes, it’s a cliché, but it belongs here) that Crais has made with L.A. Requiem. It’s not as amusing as the additional books in the series, but it’s a perfectly plotted detective tale, rich with police procedure, and it will keep even the most sophisticated reader at sea right until the end. And that’s what elevates this book to the level of literature.
This one is more about Joe Pike, Elvis’s silent sidekick, than it is about Elvis. We learn, through Pike’s own eyes, how his childhood made him the way he is today. It’s also about a friendship so strong that it threatens Elvis’s relationship with his beloved Lucy. It is a tender but dark book–a serial killer book–but it doesn’t attempt to outgross the additional serial killer books on the shelf. It is amusing at times and chilling at additional times, building it one of the rare books that can’t help but linger in the memory long after it’s been read and place away. –Otto Penzler
Buy Cheap L.A. Requiem Online
No related posts.
I guess the really dumb people won’t be wasting their time by reading this book. For the rest of you though, beware, it may turn you off to reading. I was shocked at how excellent the reviews were for this stale, poorly written, adolescent, insipid waste of paper. It was the first time I’ve read Crais, and will certainly be the last. In the acknowledgements he thanks “George Lucas”. Could it be the same mental giant that gave us “Star Wars, the Phantom Menace”? Well, the two are operating on about the same negative level of intellectual rigor. For crime buffs, there are so many fantastic alternatives: try Ellroy, Michael Stone, Loren D. Estlemen… The only excellent thing to say about this piece was that it read quick, thank god.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I am beginning to reflect only persons who like a book write a review. Others immediately dismiss it and go on to better reading. L.A. Requiem is my second attempt at Robert Crais. The first was Forgotten Man. This book was flat, characters were in a state but I made my way through it. This highly touted L.A. Requiem just had to be better, but it isn’t. The writing is poor. Elmore Leonard says to writers; don’t write what they don’t read. In Crais books I was skimming and scanning more than ever. At the rate I was skipping I could have finished it in nothing flat. Joe Pike, okay so he had a poor upbringing, he is just a rude man. Elvis Cole, oh who cares.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
The characters are paper thin. The relationships, immature — if not laughable. The plotting leaves the reader in the world of “oh wells,” or even worse, “so whats.” The tough detective has a habit of adage “Gee.” Worse still, Robert Crais’s mandate of the genre is so weak, he housed his detective in the same dwelling as the greatest detective in fiction right now: Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch. This is the kind of book that makes a reader mad. I noticed on the book’s jacket that Crais wrote for TV. This book reads like TV.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I had never read Crais before so his characters & plots were new to me although the location had the shadows of a Jonathan Kellerman. It also read a lot like an ancient-fashioned Chandler. I loved the slight exaggeration of the characters, their motives, emotions & lives. Establish some gaping holes as it seemed very unrealistic that cops from one jurisdiction could freely run in every additional jurisdiction with small or no interaction. When I’d finished, was I satisfied? For the most part yes! See my full review at [my website].active feature of this book is to guess who has committed all the crimes and the leader ingeniously drop some fundamentals to make you reflect. The huge surprise, the culprit. The ending, although a small sloppy does not disappoint and stays in line with the whole tale
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
L.A. Requiem has about every formula of detecting and police procedure in the last 30 years–all in one book! I mean, I don’t even want to name them, they are so familiar and dull: and this string of carbon copies don’t have any redeeming features, either. These Pattern People are pasted into a predictable plot line and mounted in a collage of scenes from the Los Angeles we all know and like–windy roads, terrible traffic, smog, slimy characters, and corrupt cops.
Guess the only reason I gave the book three stars is that I like the flashbacks…that technique relieves the screaming boredom to a tiny extent.
Read the earlier books of Robert Crais. Skip this one.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5