"SUNSET EXPRESS" by Robert Crais (A-)

Private eye Elvis Cole is on the job again, this time hired by a PR-savvy defense attorney out to prove that his powerful, multimillionaire client is innocent of the charge of having murdered his wife. Of course, with Elvis Cole, the cases are almost secondary to the joy of reading about how he walks through the process and how he interacts with all of the people he meets along the way. Character is everything, and Cole is one of the most interesting characters in fiction. Long may author Robert Crais thrive and continue to be prolific in the production of his highly readable and immensely enjoyable private eye novels.

In "Sunset Express" we find that Cole's formerly simple life with few friends and a single deeply personal and trusting relationship with his long time partner, Joe Pike, has suddenly become more complicated. Elvis had previously solved a case that took him to Louisiana. While there he became involved with Lucy Chenier, the attorney of his client at the time.

Now some time later, Cole might be defined as being in a committed relationship with Lucy, a relationship that has been limited due to the fact that he lives and works in LA while she does the same in Louisiana (which happens to be the home state of Robert Crais). Now Lucy and her young son plan to visit Elvis at his home in LA, but their visit will be badly timed since it will occur at the height of a media frenzy over a sensational murder case in which he is deeply involved.

This story has more twists and turns than usual, and some of them are unexpected unless you start off with a properly cynical assumption about the parties involved. The publicity-shy Cole is somewhat more subdued in this outing, partly due to his strained relationship with his client, the media-obsessed attorney, but also due to some new problems with Lucy, who has regrettably allowed some baggage from back home in Louisiana to interfere with their relationship. Here the plot assumes a greater importance to the usually plentiful Cole asides, which in this instance is not a bad thing.

LA police officers and partners Dan Tomsic and Angela Rossi have been called in to investigate the discovery of a body found in a garbage bag at the bottom of a ravine. Rossi climbs down the steep ravine and carefully examines the crime scene. The body turns out to be that of a young woman, and a famous one at that, for she was Susan Martin, the wife of Teddy Martin, a very wealthy restauranteur and real estate developer.

Tomsic and Rossi interview Teddy Martin before the news hits the airwaves, and he expresses shock and remorse. Yes, they were having marital problems, but he seems to be clean with a reasonable alibi. Then Rossi stumbles on a blood-covered ball peen hammer hidden in a hedge on his estate, and Martin is arrested and jailed on the spot.

Martin hires the best defense attorney there is, and that is the nationally prominent LA defense attorney Jonathan Greene. Greene and his famous "Big Greene Defense Machine" quickly go to work to exonerate him. Unfortunately, a big part of that effort includes sliming Officer Rossi. Years earlier she had been accused of planting evidence in a counterfeiting case. Though exonerated, the suspicions have festered and now Greene resurrects them. Rossi had also committed procedural errors in a murder case that had allowed a suspect to walk. Both cases have become stumbling blocks in her ambition to become the first female chief of detectives.

Greene accuses Rossi of planting the bloody hammer at the estate, and, since she was the first police officer to examine the crime scene, how can she prove that she didn't remove this forensic evidence and plant it? Abandoned by her fellow officers under a barrage of negative PR emanating from the Big Greene Defense Machine, Rossi is placed on leave and then suspended from the force.

Elvis Cole is aware of the Martin case, but he is far more interested in the imminent arrival of Lucy Chenier. One afternoon a huge party invades his office, and it turns out to be Jonathan Greene and his large entourage, all of whom are being followed by a video crew filming them for posterity. Greene hires Cole to investigate the loose ends of the Martin case, including some of the tips that have been telephoned in to his hot line. Elvis doggedly begins to run down the many leads. 1996, Hyperion Publishers, 274 pages.