Sunset Express: An Elvis Cole Novel [Unknown Binding]

Robert Crais (Author)

Product Details

• Unknown Binding
• Publisher: Hyperion Books
• ASIN: B001UPWI36
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,612,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Elvis Cole does it again., May 1, 2005

By 

sporkdude "sporkdude" (San Jose, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunset Express: An Elvis Cole Novel (Elvis Cole Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

I guess this book was recently re-released, because for the longest time, it was the only Elvis Cole novel that I couldn't find in any book store. Well, now that it's out, it a pretty standard Elvis Cole novel. And that's fine by me.

Without giving too much away, a rich and famous man is accused of murdering his wife. He's hired by the defense to look for dirt on the women who arrived at the crime scene, and investigate other materials. Elvis has his doubts on some of his leads, and he uses his investigative clues and his partner, Joe Pike, to figure it all out.

Though it gets somewhat outlandish in the end, this book provides a good mixture of intrigue, detective work, back-stabbing and more. As usual, it's a fun fluid read, and I recommend it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read but not his best, January 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sunset Express: An Elvis Cole Novel (Paperback)

I've read all six of Crais' Elvis Cole novels starting with The Monkey's Raincoat. With but one other exception, I rate the rest of Crais' novels as 5 star reads (the other exception being Stalking The Angel, I dislike story lines where the hero is constantly being put in danger because of some fool). Sunset Express came close in the number and quality of great wisecracks but the denouement was somewhat unsatisfying (again probably because I was comparing it to his 5 star works). Elvis and Pike are the most intriquing detective characters I know of and I look forward to reading the next Crais effort.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars OJ with a twist, July 19, 2001

By 

Larry Eischen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunset Express: An Elvis Cole Novel (Paperback)

You're not into this Elvis Cole case too long before you realize that Crais is using the OJ Simpson case as a model. And if you haven't read any of Crais' Elvis Cole novels, you'll also realize before too long that Elvis and his partner Joe Pike are similar in tone to Robert Parker's Spenser and Hawk. But Robert Crais has the ability to take these similarities and craft them into a series and a detective novel with it's very own flavor. Cole is hired to check out a detective who may have planted evidence. His findings aren't consistent with what the defense team wants and Elvis is forced to switch teams and work with Joe Pike to clear up a mess he helped create. Elvis' romantic tangle with a lawyer from Louisiana is brought into play and takes up a little too much page time, but the the climatic 3rd of the book is as satisfying a set of confrontations as anyything in the Spenser series. Not all of the bad guys get their just desserts and Elvis vows at the end to hound those who get away, which would make a nice story for a future case. A great PI novel especially for those who distrust lawyers and the media, which is just about everybody but lawyers and members of the media.