The Forgotten Man (Elvis Cole Novels) [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert Crais (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2006

Elvis Cole is back...

With his acclaimed bestsellers, Hostage (a New York Times Notable Book) and Demolition Angel, Robert Crais drew raves for his unstoppable pacing, edgy characterizations, and cinematic prose. Now, in The Last Detective, Crais returns to his signature character, Los Angeles private investigator Elvis Cole, in a masterful page-turner that probes the meaning of family and the burdens of the past.

Elvis Cole's relationship with attorney Lucy Chenier is strained. When she moved from Louisiana to join Elvis in Los Angeles, she never dreamed that violence would so easily touch her life -- but then the unthinkable happens. While Lucy is away on business and her ten-year-old son, Ben, is staying with Elvis, Ben disappears without a trace. Desperate to believe that the boy has run away, evidence soon mounts to suggest a much darker scenario.

Joining forces with his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, Elvis frantically searches for Ben with the help of LAPD Detective Carol Starkey, as Lucy's wealthy, oil-industry ex-husband attempts to wrest control of the investigation. Amid the maelstrom of personal conflicts, Elvis and Joe are forced to consider a more troubling lead -- one indicating that Ben's disappearance is connected to a terrible, long-held secret from Elvis Cole's past.

Venturing deep inside a complex psyche, Crais explores Elvis's need for family - the military that embraced him during a troubled adolescence, his rock-solid partnership with Pike, and his floundering relationship with Lucy - as they race the clock in their search for Ben. The Last Detective is Robert Crais' richest, most intense tale of suspense yet.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Crais's latest L.A.-based crime novel featuring super-sleuth Elvis Cole blends high-powered action, a commanding cast and a touch of dark humor to excellent dramatic effect. One morning at four, Cole gets a call from the LAPD informing him that a murdered John Doe has claimed, with his dying breath, to be Cole's father, a man Cole has never met. Cole immediately gets to work gathering evidence on the dead man - Herbert Faustina, aka George Reinnike - while cramping the style of the assigned detective, Jeff Pardy. Though Cole finds Reinnike's motel room key at the crime scene, the puzzle pieces are tough to put together, even with the unfailing help of partner Joe Pike and feisty ex-Bomb Squad techie Carol Starkey, who's so smitten with Cole that she can't think of him without smiling. Days of smart sleuthing work take the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Detective" from a Venice Beach escort service to the California desert, then a hospital in San Diego, where doubts about Reinnike's true heritage begin to dissipate. Meanwhile, a delusional psychopath named Frederick Conrad, who is convinced that his partner in crime was killed by Cole, stalks and schemes to even the score. There's lots to digest, but this character-driven series continues to be strong in plot, action and pacing, and Crais (The Last Detective) boasts a distinctive knack for a sucker-punch element of surprise.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Bookmarks Magazine

The 10th Elvis Cole novel earns well above average praise from most critics. In the series’ latest, Crais develops one of his most complex characters yet by expanding on the detective’s painful childhood. But The Forgotten Man does have flaws, especially in comparison to the earlier, and stronger, Cole novels. “All the elements are present to make another thrilling Crais mystery,” writes the Chicago Sun-Times, “but the spark ... is missing.” In other words, longtime fans will appreciate this quick-paced and gritty mystery thriller, but newcomers should stick to previous Cole installments.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345451910
• ISBN-13: 978-0345451910
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #69 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Hard-Boiled

More About the Author

Robert Crais is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. He was the 2006 recipient of the Ross Macdonald Literary Award.

A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a blue collar family of oil refinery workers and four generations of police officers. He purchased a second-hand paperback of Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister when he was fifteen, which inspired his lifelong love of writing, Los Angeles, and the literature of crime fiction.

He journeyed to Hollywood in 1976 where he quickly found work writing scripts for such major television series as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, and Miami Vice, as well as scripting numerous series pilots and movies-of-the-week for the major networks.

Feeling constrained by the collaborative working requirements of Hollywood, Crais resigned from a lucrative position as a contract writer and television producer in order to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a novelist. His first efforts proved unsuccessful, but upon the death of his father in 1985, Crais was inspired to create Elvis Cole, using elements of his own life as the basis of the story. The resulting novel, The Monkey's Raincoat, won the Anthony and Macavity Awards and was nominated for the Edgar Award. It has since been selected as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

Crais conceived of the novel as a stand-alone, but realized that, in Elvis Cole, he had created an ideal and powerful character through which to comment upon his life and times. Elvis Cole's readership skyrocketed in 1999 upon the publication of L. A. Requiem, which was a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller and forever changed the way Crais conceived of and structured his novels. Larger and deeper in scope, Publishers Weekly wrote of L. A. Requiem, "Crais has stretched himself the way another Southern California writer, Ross Macdonald, always tried to do, to write a mystery novel with a solid literary base." Booklist added, "This is an extraordinary crime novel that should not be pigeonholed by genre. The best books always land outside preset boundaries. A wonderful experience."

Crais followed with his first non-series novel, Demolition Angel, which was published in 2000 and featured former Los Angeles Police Department Bomb Technician Carol Starkey. In 2001, Crais published his second non-series novel, Hostage, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and was a world-wide bestseller. The editors of Amazon.com selected Hostage as the #1 thriller of the year. A film adaptation of Hostage was released in 2005, starring Bruce Willis as ex-LAPD SWAT negotiator Jeff Talley.

Robert Crais lives in the Santa Monica mountains with his wife, three cats, and many thousands of books. Additional information can be found at his website, www.robertcrais.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crais never fails to entertain., July 17, 2005

By 

L. Quido "quidrock" (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Forgotten Man : A Novel (Hardcover)

Elvis Cole dwells in the past in this, Robert Crais' 10th novel featuring the "world's greatest detective". And while Crais' readers love the wise-cracking detective, many of us read the series as much for Joe Pike, his scary, warrior-like back up system. Tough turn, then, that Pike is merely an afterthought in this book.

Taking up much of the slack is Carol Starkey, the alcoholic, former bomb-squad detective who starred in Crais' "Demolition Angel" and met up with Elvis in "The Last Detective". Carol's having strong romantic feelings for Elvis, but he's not ready for a new love yet, still licking his wounds from the breakup with former paramour Lucy and her son Ben, who appear briefly.

The story allows the reader to break into the murky past of Elvis, when a man is shot, who has been looking for his son. As a child, Elvis was on an endless quest to discover the identity of his father; his mother suffered from an emotional disorder and his grandparents could hardly restrain his need to wander, to try to find himself. He's had a rough childhood, and the possibility that the dead man is his father draws him out of a depression and into the mainstream of the police investigation. During the track of the novel, a character named Frederick, a paranoid schizophrenic, lurks in the background, convinced that Cole was responsible for the death of his friend Payne.

As his search for the truth about the dead man evolves, Cole starts to shed light on a cold case, rediscovering his power to energetically pursue answers as he buries himself in his work. A little oblivious to Starkey's feelings, Cole is nevertheless drawn to her by mutual need on the case, and by the recognition that she's another tortured soul. Elvis may be the wittiest of today's detectives in this genre, but Crais proves here that he's not just witty, lucky and likeable, he's also the product of his past.

Although "The Forgotten Man" is not nearly the book "The Last Detective" was, Crais continues to disarm his readers and keeps the series alive.

There's some complexity here, and some surprises at the end, and Crais fans will be begging for more Elvis Cole when the story concludes. For my money, any real 5 star Elvis Cole story will also bring more action and reaction with the inclusion of the volatile Joe Pike in the story.

Recommended for fans who like their thrillers in series, but read the earlier books first.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's the best thing about this novel?, March 22, 2005

By 

Michael D. Trimble (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Forgotten Man : A Novel (Hardcover)

Well the best thing is this book was my FIRST Robert Crais novel. That means, as best I can figure, there are eleven more books of his to read before the next one comes out! So I have lots to look forward to and can imagine that long time Crais fans probably envy me.

Since I have not read anything else Crais has done, I am able to judge this book on its own merits without comparing it to his other stories. That said, it is well written, the story flows from scene to scene in an orderly and logical fashion. I know it sounds cliché but this book was hard to put down. The chapters are short and it is easy to read JUST ONE MORE chapter before going to bed. There was plenty of action, which is what you expect from detectives, and there were lots of witty repartee and cracking wise between the characters. Most of the best lines come as Crais let's us hear the thinking of his characters, so the lines aren't necessarily spoken to anyone.

Elvis Cole (the man around whom the book is written) is a great PI, extremely introspective with lots of endearing qualities, and if you enjoy reading authors who develop their cast over the course of a series of books, then I would have to say that Robert Crais has the franchise for you. He seems every bit as good as Robert B. Parker, perhaps more so since this book has the "thriller thing" going for it.

Highly recommended and you won't be disappointed!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A GLIMPLSE INSIDE THE SOUL OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE, February 20, 2005

By 

Wayne C. Rogers (Las Vegas, Nevada United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Forgotten Man : A Novel (Hardcover)

I've been reading Robert Crais since 1992, and I'm still like a little kid whenever a new "Elvis Cole/Joe Pike" novel comes out. After waiting for two long years, I tried to make THE FORGOTTEN MAN last, but ended up reading it in one day. The newest novel continues a few months where THE LAST DETECTIVE left off. Elvis Cole has recovered from the wound in his hand, Lucy Chenier and her son, Ben, are now living permanently in Louisiana, the publicity has finally died down from the rescue of Ben from the kidnappers by Cole and Pike, and the World's Greatest Detective is now at a lost on what to do with his life now that Lucy and Ben are gone. When the telephone rings at 3:58 in the morning and a voice tells Cole that a man has been killed who, in his last few breaths, claimed to be the Detective's long, lost father, a new adventure begins that will lead our hero on a journey of deep introspection and eventually to personal tragedy. Along the way, the reader will learn of Cole's search for his father as a thirteen-year-old boy and what led him to become a detective many years later, why his mother would disappear for months at a time, leaving him with his grandparents. The reader will also jump up and down at the return of Carol Starkey (DEMOLITION ANGEL & THE LAST DETECTIVE), who now has a crush of the World's Greatest Detective, but is afraid to let him know. With the help of his close friends, Elvis Cole will track down the killer of the man who claimed to be his father, but at a cost that is devastating, leaving the reader numb and shocked, which is exactly how the author planned it. THE FORGOTTEN MAN is Robert Crais at his best, delivering a story that is both compelling and fun to read. It's been a tremendous pleasure to watch Mr. Crais grow as a writer over the last decade, as well as to see the characters of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike evolve. This is definitely one of the best series on the market today, and I highly recommend it any reader who loves suspense and action