"THE WATCHMAN" by Robert Crais (A)

This is the book to read. Another PI named Joe, only this time Joe Pike, a legend in Los Angeles police circles. A terrific read, especially if you like modern day PI stories with an edge and lots of grit to them. Like Mayor, Crais has written a whole series of books about Joe Pike, a mercenary for hire, and his long time partner and PI associate with the unlikely name of Elvis Cole. In this book, Pike is the lead character and Cole is a supporting character, while the next Crais book I will be reading features Cole in the leading role and Pike in a supporting role. 

Crais is a very fine writer with sharp dialogue and strong characterizations. He flashes back in time only when necessary, and usually to illuminate another aspect of Pike's troubled life. Joe Pike strikes me as like a latter day Sam Spade, a detective who will operate on both sides of the law to achieve his goals. I do not mean by this that he is a crook, for he isn't. Pike is the most idealistic of men, but he seldom limits himself in his methods. He has an admirable personal integrity, but he is a fearless avenging angel who will kill anyone who gets in his way or anyone else who deserves punishment, but has gone beyond the reach of the law. 

Pike had been abused as a boy by his father, so he worked out his anger first in the marines, where he was a special forces agent. Then he became a Los Angeles cop, one of the best until he took the fall for a fellow officer and chose to resign. With his special ops talents, he has become a mercenary for hire who has worked all over the world, but only for what he felt were just causes. 

Along the way he has done favors for others, and they owe him a turn. Sometimes, he has gone to others for a favor, and now he owes them one. One such favor, a chit, is called due after the passage of years, decades even. A man calls him out of the blue and asks Pike to meet with a rich Los Angeles real estate developer to protect his daughter. Pike doesn't do this line of work, but his word is his bond, and he will do this for nothing to pay off that favor that he had received years before. 

The only thing that he looks forward to in this case is the chance to work again with Bud Flynn, a high ranking police agent who had been Pike's guiding officer when he had first started out on the LA force. Pike had saved Flynn's life while still a rookie, and the two have always had the deepest respect for each other. Flynn had been one of the few older man in his life that Pike had really liked, and he has almost been like a father figure to him. 

Larkin Conner Barkley is a rich, gay young thing in her mid twenties much like Paris Hilton. Speeding down a deserted Los Angeles highway at 2:30 in the morning, her Aston Martin suddenly crashes into a Mercedes Benz backing out of an alley. The owners are dazed and remain in the car, but a passenger in the back seat hidden by the smoked glass gets out of the car and staggers down the street into the dark. The police investigate and a report is filed. Nothing is known of the occupant, except that the couple in the front seat suddenly become the objects of interest to the FBI.

Larkin is also interviewed by the FBI, and she identifies the passenger from photographs as one Alex Meesh, a drug dealer who fled the country and is now an agent for a Colombian drug cartel. He is believed to be in town to launder cartel drug money. He has disappeared and so have the driver and his wife. All of a sudden, an attempt is made on Larkin's life. Then another, and then another. This is all the more surprising since she is under FBI protection and her dad, already a wealthy man, lives behind a wall of security. None of this protection appears to be working, and soon Pike gets that call to keep her from being killed. 

It quickly becomes apparent to Pike and Cole that there is a breach of security somewhere in the FBI or in the Barkley family. Their first two hideaways are found within hours and it is only in a hail of gunfire that Pike is able to escape with Larkin and save her life. He decides that he will "drop off the grid," as he calls it, and go into hiding with only Cole able to reach him. This infuriates everyone, her dad and the FBI included, as they are not used to having someone else call the shots. Now they may be after him as well, since they don't know where Larkin is or even if she is still alive. Meanwhile Pike has to put up with having to baby sit a spoiled, rich brat, just the sort of person he hates.  

Enjoy, enjoy a good read whenever you can. Carl