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The story opens with Joe Pike in Alaska, wounded and weakened by the events that took place in LA REQUIEM, trying to find and kill a man-eating brown bear. He fails and is certain that he is a lost man no longer capable of defending himself. In Los Angeles Elvis is taking care of Ben, Lucy Chenierıs ten year old son. Elvis is getting very serious about Lucy and really likes Ben as well. Lucy has called and is on her way from the airport and Elvis calls out to Ben, but there is no answer. He has disappeared. He has been kidnapped by men who claim they want to punish Elvis for what he did in Vietnam. Lucyıs ex-husband, wealthy Richard Chenier, comes from New Orleans to find his son. Pike hurries back from Alaska. What happens then is a frightening and bloodcurdling investigation. The police are involved. Richard brings his own security people. Elvis and Pike are determined they will find Ben even though Lucy begs them to stop for fear the kidnappers will kill the boy. It is white knuckle time especially when we discover the kind of men who snatched Ben. This is an exciting story that kept me involved right to the very end. There is never any doubt about who has done the actual kidnapping, but we do not know whether Elvis and Pike will find them in time or not. There is suspense and there are some surprising revelations about who is involved. The writing is good. It is clear and conveys exactly what the author wants to say to the reader. It moves the story along and insures that the reader will never be pulled out. I did not feel that the setting, Los Angeles, came through as strongly as it has in past novels. This could have happened in almost any city although quite clearly it was Los Angeles. The sections describing Vietnam suffered, in my view, because I had just finished Laurie R. Kingıs book that is so graphic and so vivid that the events felt like they were happening to me. As always the characters are appealing, Wisecracking aside, Elvis is an honorable man, one who makes his living in a way that brings great danger into his life, but a man who cares about others and does not needlessly kill. He does, of course, administer vigilante justice; no waiting around for the police for him and Pike. But he loves Lucy and he loves Ben and he will give up anything to find Ben and restore him to his mother. We do learn more about his past in this book which makes him more realistic. Pike has become humanized as a result of what we previously learned about him. He is weaker now, more vulnerable, needs to think things through a bit more rather than simply act. The villains are pretty two-dimensional and perhaps larger than life. I was bothered in my reading by the frequent point of view shifts. I guess the technique was effective and certainly it helped to see events from several different points of view, but we heard from Elvis in the first person and the others in third person and sometimes I had trouble shifting back and forth. There is explicit violence in this book and of course a child is in jeopardy, so you need to keep that in mind when deciding whether o read it. The violence is not, however, gratuitous. It is very necessary to make the points that Crais wants to make. All in all I enjoyed this, although it certainly is not the equal of LA REQUIEM
Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, April 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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