Elvis Cole is watching 10-year-old Ben Chenier, the son of his girlfriend Lucy, who is away on a journalistic assignment. Ben wanders out behind the house one evening while Cole is on the phone. When he's finished with the call, Ben is gone.
A man calls and says he has the boy and that he is acting in revenge because Cole got some rangers and innocent civilians killed in Vietnam. Cole denies the accusations, but now he's got something to work with.
Cole and his lethal pal, ex-marine, ex-cop Joe Pike learn that the kidnappers are three soldiers of fortune whose leader is wanted as a war criminal for his part in genocide in Sierra Leone. The man was a ranger, like Cole. He's one tough character and he's buried Ben in a box with a tube for him to breath by. Ben is brave, but he is no match for his kidnappers.
Cole's enemy is younger and better trained and he has two professional aides. But that doesn't matter. Cole and Pike live by a sort of Hemingwayesque code combined with a warrior's pride. Like Rambo, they don't back down and like Rambo, when ticked off, they leave violence in their wake.
In the "The Last Detective" Robert Crais takes his readers on a wild, twisting and tension filled ride that will have them reading throughout the night. He expertly uses flashbacks to give his readers Cole's back story, something many of us have craved. The flashback's also serve to humanize Cole in a that we haven't seen before.
There are a lot of tough guy characters out there who are fun to read about, Jack Reacher comes to mind, but for my money Elvis Cole is the king of the hill. Well, his sidekick Joe Pike is one pretty tough mutha too, good thing he fights with Cole and not against.Get more detail about The Last Detective.
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