"THE FORGOTTEN MAN" by Robert Crais (B+)

I have admired Robert Crais for some time now as being one of the finest crime writers out there, but I will have to admit that this is not one of his best efforts. This 2005 entry in the Elvis Cole canon suffers from being pulled in too many directions by all of its characters. They never seem to intersect with each other as adults, but rather they carom into each other (and us) as the walking wounded. This is mainly because they all have "issues." Big time, and the story flounders a little because of this.

Whenever I read a book in this genre, I always like to find that at least one character, preferably the hero, is a rock of stability in a sea of insanity. I didn't find that here, since everyone populating these pages has issues and, as a result, they are all emotionally damaged goods. Each and every character is dominated by their emotional angst and the exorcising of their hidden demons. This may be fine for the villains, but I like to see my heroes standing on terra firma, not terra incognita.

Even our intrepid hero, Elvis Cole, becomes emotionally overwrought over the possible revelation of his unknown parentage, since a major plot point of this novel revolves around whether or not a murder victim is his father. This has been a background element that Crais has used as a tease throughout all of his Cole novels, but I believe that the revelation of the early life of Elvis Cole in this novel is less satisfying than reading about the same for Joe Pike in the other Crais novels.

"The World's Greatest Detective" reverts to being a little boy who was always running away from home to find his father. This was rather hard to do when he was young, since his more than slightly off-kilter mother had once told him that his father was a human cannonball for a traveling circus. We get to learn more about Cole's childhood and also about the childhood of some of the other characters, all of whom grew up with their own personal issues to deal with and maybe even some murderous scores to settle.

The story begins many years ago in the dusty desert town of Temecula, California. On an excruciatingly hot sunny afternoon with temperatures in the hundreds, officers Padilla and Bigelow are called to an area of modest homes to investigate a possible crime scene. They cautiously enter a house to find a bloody murder scene with nearly the entire family butchered. The only survivor was a small girl who happened to be playing outside at the time. She was found hiding in a closet, terrified and speechless, with her life horribly changed forever.

Flash forward to the present at four in the morning when a sleepy Elvis Cole is rudely awakened by his ringing telephone. This call was in of itself unusual since he had switched to an unlisted number after solving a previous high profile case which had resulted in a blizzard of fawning press articles. The call turns out to be from the police, and Detective Kelly Diaz tells him that the victim who she had found dying in an alley from a gunshot wound had been asking for him. The "vic" claimed to be Cole's father and that he was looking for him.

Later at the morgue the body is discovered to have copies of newspaper clippings about the "World's Greatest Detective" in one of his pockets. He is also found to be covered with tattoos, mostly of a religious nature. Detective Diaz summons Cole down to the morgue to see if he can remember the tattoos or if they might hold any meaning for him.

Elvis can't place any of the tattoos, and, furthermore, nothing else adds up either. Who was this man and what was he doing in a poorly lit alley in such a seedy section of town? Who was he meeting? The only possible clues are the metal braces in his legs which might offer identification through hospital records.

Elvis later leans on LAPD Detective Carole Starkey ("Demolition Angel") for help in identifying a motel key card that he found at the crime scene. Cole is oblivious to the fact that Starkey has fallen in love with him. Since it appears to be a case of unrequited love, his every contact with her is emotionally painful. She will do whatever he asks of her, but she always remains hopeful for a romantic pay back. 2005, Doubleday, 342 pages.