"CHASING DARKNESS" by Robert Crais (B+)

Robert Crais is one of our most dependable authors. He can always be counted on to deliver a fine read with every Crais novel delivering hours of reading pleasure. His latest effort is no exception. The subtitle of this book says it all: "An Elvis Cole novel," for Elvis Cole is one of his most enduring characters as a wisecracking LA private eye with that oddball Pinocchio clock hanging on a wall in his office.

Every PI author develops a small coterie of characters who come into our minds and are fleshed out over the years to the point where it is a delight to welcome them back into the interior world of our imagination. We come to know them them almost as real people even though they are characters so unlike our own. For a few hours we have the pleasure of entering their world, and Crais has my undying gratitude for creating such indelible characters as Joe Pike and Elvis Cole.

All of the usual gang of friends and associates are here. This includes Carole Starkey ("Demolition Angel"), formerly a member of the elite LAPD bomb squad who nearly died in an explosion and now works for the major crimes unit. She gave up drinking, but still smokes like a fish and continues to carry a romantic torch for Elvis. Then there is Lou Poitras, a gruff police captain who is built like a vault and fills the doorway when he passes through. He respects Elvis Cole, but hates Joe Pike. Poitras is honest to the core, and he can always be counted on to provide a lead to a department source when one is needed.

Of course, the enigmatic and fearsome Joe Pike is ever present as Elvis' trusted partner, but his role here can only be described as modest at best. Smaller still is the presence of Lucy Chenier, who provides a phone in cameo role in one chapter as Elvis' former love interest ("Voodoo River") who had moved back to Louisiana after being "scorched" by criminals out to get to Cole by kidnaping her son in an earlier novel ("The Last Detective").

LA Coroner John Chen, a geeky string bean of a man who always hopes to score with the ladies, likewise has a miniscule presence. The same for Lou Poitras, who only appears briefly early on. Even Carole Starkey's relationship with Elvis is almost all business in this taut thriller.

Crais' usual literary modus operandi is to provide brilliant dialogue and characterizations along with cases that are often somewhat ordinary. I never minded this, because I am always so entertained by the setup. Reading Crais is like the old Greyhound motto: "Getting there is half the fun." Robert Crais is one of the best in the business when it comes to dialogue.

"Chasing Darkness" is instead a first class crime caper that is all business and little fun. Crais has reversed course to pen a novel where a strong plot is primary with the dialogue and the characterizations left in the background. Yes, some of the usual banter and camaraderie are here, but they are secondary and fleeting. To be honest about it, I missed them.

It is nice to know that Crais can pen an edge-of-your-seat crime thriller, but I was really hoping to revisit the characters, and this read left me somewhat disappointed. Furthermore, Crais skirts the boundaries of good taste in describing some horrific murder scenes in far more vivid detail than I would have liked. I find this to be rather objectionable as little more than literary pornography.
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The brutal fire season fed by the Santa Ana winds is starting once again in the hills above LA. Two cops trying to evacuate a street in Laurel Canyon enter a small, nondescript home only to find a corpse in it which has been dead for some time. The victim had gone by the name of Lonny Jones, but he is quickly identified as Lionel Bird, a suspect in the serial murders of seven young women.

Bird's death is assumed to be a suicide, as he was found in his living room sitting on a chair with a bottle nearby and a gun in his hand. A photographic album at his feet details the grisly murders of each of the seven women, many of them prostitutes. The Polaroid shots were taken at the moment of death, which implies a certain psychotic rush along with a creepy delight in taking chances at being discovered. The pictures could only have been taken by the perpetrator. Fingerprints and other forensic evidence strongly link Bird to this album.

Two very angry LA police detectives barge unannounced into Elvis Cole's office, and Elvis finds out that the source of their anger is his having freed Bird as a suspect in one of the killings three years before. Unfortunately, two more young women were killed after Bird was set free. Needless to say, the discovery of this new evidence doesn't endear Cole to the LAPD.

Elvis refuses to believe that he was incorrect in his initial assessment that Bird was not at the scene of the crime for which he had earlier been charged. His few friends, Joe Pike and Lucy Chenier, encourage him to follow his gut instincts. To protect his professional credibility, Cole decides to go back over the three year old witness list and the now hazy timeline that he had set up for Bird. Then, without explanation, the case is suddenly pulled from the detectives under Lou Poitras and sent "Downtown" with a gag order placed on all of the evidence. The new investigating detectives make it more than clear that they don't want Cole anywhere near the case.

This is not the best Crais book, as it leads away from his strengths as a writer. However, it is still a very entertaining read. The receipt of this latest Crais novel as a birthday present from a beloved sister was a delightful surprise. 2008, Simon and Schuster, 273 pages.