Reviewer Much “Taken” With Robert Crais' Latest Elvis Cole Novel

by Minnie Apolis Elvis Cole and his sometimes partner, Joe Pike, take turns starring in novels by Robert Crais. This time around, it is Elvis who does the talking, which is just as well; Pike is not the talkative type. In the newest novel, Taken, Elvis is prevailed upon by a widow to search for her daughter. Elvis is not alarmed by the fact that the college-coed daughter is off for the weekend with her boyfriend. After all, lots of young women extend their weekends with their significant others. But the mom plays back recorded calls asking for money. The voice on the machine has a heavy Latino accent when the daughter actually has none. There are other discrepancies that turn up as Elvis probes the case. (Yes, he does take the case. Bribed, in part, by custom-printed tees proclaiming him the “World's Greatest Detective.”) Nita, the mother, fears that they have eloped. But as the chapters unfold, it turns out that the daughter, Krista, and her boyfriend have both been caught up in the uglier side of smuggling humans across the border. Krista has been investigating the coyotes, as the guides who bring in illegals are called. But there are even worse entities who prey on the illegals and the coyotes, stealing the truckload of illegals and holding them hostage for ransoms. Things look very dark for our hero, Krista, and her boyfriend, Jack. Krista hoped to survive by playing ignorant and uneducated, hence the accent on the phone calls. But it is only by claiming that Jack is very rich that they can actually survive long enough to be rescued. The tension steadily mounts as we learn what kind of ruthless killers he is up against. The unusual use of multiple points of view allows us to follow the progress of Cole, the hostages, the assorted coyotes and gangs, and the friends of the young couple. Elvis needs the assistance of his partner, Pike, and others to rescue himself and the hostages – and to play one group of coyotes against the others and against the party of Koreans that paid for a group of illegals to be delivered. Elvis assumes a false identity in order to offer to buy the hostages as illegal workers for his own purposes. Everybody that is supposed to survive to another day, and another novel, does – but it is a mighty close squeaker. This is the fifteenth novel featuring the Cole-Pike team. Crais has won the Anthony, Barry, Shamus, Macavity, and Gumshoe awards, plus the Ross Macdonald Literary Award in 2006. He previously wrote for several popular TV shows such as Hill Street Blues, Quincy, Baretta, Miami Vice, Cagney and Lacey, and L.A. Law. Taken, Robert Crais, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 2012, 341 pages. ISBN 9780399158278 See also RobertCrais.com and penguin.com, or facebook.com/TheRealRobertCrais