Robert Crais – författare

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER 2026 HE DISAPPEARED. SHE NEVER STOPPED LOOKING. Private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike face a cryptic case and a terrifyingly unpredictable killer in this twisty, edge-of-your-seat thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais. ‘Robert Crais has mastered the fine art of storytelling’ James Patterson‘Hands down the best book I’ve read this year. Simply incredible’ M. W. CravenWhen influencer Traci Beller hires PI Elvis Cole to find her father, who has been missing for ten years and presumed to have walked out on his family, the case seems like it will stay cold.But in Rancha, nothing stays buried forever.What starts as a search for answers twists into a deadly race against time, as victims become predators, and predators become prey.With ex-Marine Joe Pike by his side, Elvis follows Tommy’s trail into a darkness that will challenge his loyalty to his clients—and to himself.The truth is waiting in The Big Empty. But can Elvis survive what he finds?Readers love The Big Empty . . . (5 star reviews*****)'The Big Empty is one of my top favorite 2025 mystery novels!''Once I started reading this, I couldn't put it down''This book has everything you love about Elvis Cole and Joe Pike''Five stars all the way. Highly recommended''My one word review for this one would be "wow!"'

'THE LAST DETECTIVE is literally a thrill-a-minute read. Crais is on top form, which, believe me, is about as good as it gets. Don't miss it' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY'The narrative is taut, the menace palpable, the suspense unbearable' DAILY TELEGRAPHElvis Cole has got a problem to solve - and this time it's personal.Elvis Cole's girlfriend, Lucy, is out of town, and she has left her young son Ben in Elvis's care. Elvis and Lucy have had a few problems lately - not least over his job as a private investigator. But at last things seem to be getting better. Then Ben disappears. One minute he's playing his computer game in Elvis's house; the next he has vanished. Elvis looks everywhere, but he just can't find Ben; and neither can Lucy when she arrives. Then Elvis receives a phone call about Ben - and realises that something from his own past has come back to haunt him...

Demoliton Angel is wonderful! -->From the Paperback edition.

The bestselling author of Demolition Angel and L.A. Requiem returns with his most intense and intricate thriller yet. As the Los Angeles Times said, Robert Crais is “a crime writer operating at the top of his game.” His complex heroes and heroines, his mastery of noir atmosphere, and his brilliant, taut plots have catapulted him into the front rank of a new breed of thriller writers. Hostage proves his earlier success was no fluke. It’s an unstoppable read.An ex-con with delusions of grandeur and his tagalong brother unwittingly team up with a psychopath one wrong word away from meltdown. When their late afternoon joyride turns into a random act of violence, they take a family hostage in the affluent bedroom community of Bristo Camino. Enter Chief of Police Jeff Talley, a stressed-out former LAPD SWAT negotiator who is hiding from his past. Plunged back into the high-pressure world that he desperately wants to forget, Talley soon learns that his nightmare has only begun. The hostages are not who they seem, and the home contains secrets that even L.A.’s most lethal and volatile crime lord, Sonny Benza, fears. As Talley tries to hold himself together and save the people inside, the full weight of Benza’s wrath descends on him, putting the police chief and his own family at risk. Soon, all involved are held hostage by the exigencies of fate and the only one capable of diffusing the standoff is the least stable of them all.Hostage is a blistering stand-alone thriller with superb characters in crisis, multistranded plotting, and pitch-perfect Southern California sensibility.From the Hardcover edition.

The day starts like any other in L.A. The sun burns hot as the Santa Ana winds blow ash from mountain fires to coat the glittering city. But for private investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, is dead, brutally murdered with a gun shot to the head.Now Karen''s powerful father calls on Pike (a former cop) and his partner, Elvis Cole, to keep an eye on the LAPD as they search for his daughter''s killer--because in the luminous City of Angels, everyone has secrets, and even the mighty blue have something to hide. But what starts as a little procedural hand-holding turns into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. For a dark web of conspiracy threatens to destroy Pike and Cole''s twelve-year friendship--if not their lives. And L.A. just might be singing their dirge.From the Paperback edition.

Private detective Elvis Cole takes Jennifer Sheridan''s case, which involves her decorated Los Angeles-cop boyfriend in some mysterious trouble, and Cole and his partner Pike are soon plunged in police corruption, gangs, and the depiction of themselves as armed killers.From the Paperback edition.

Hollywood''s newest wunderkind is Peter Alan Nelson, the brilliant, erratic director known as the King of Adventure.  His films make billions, but his manners make enemies.  What the boy king wants, he gets, and what Nelson wants is for Elvis to comb the country for the airhead wife and infant child the film-school flunkout dumped en route to becoming the third biggest filmmaker in America.  It''s the kind of case Cole can handle in his sleep -- until it turns out to be a nightmare.  For when Cole finds Nelson''s wife in a small Conneticut town, she''s nothing like what he expects.  The lady has some unwanted -- and very nasty -- mob connections, which means Elvis could be opening the East Coast branch of his P.I. office . . .at the bottom of the Hudson River.From the Paperback edition.

Hired by a hotel magnate to locate a priceless Japanese manuscript, L.A. private eye Elvis Cole encounters the notorious Yakuza, the Japanese Mob, and is drawn into a game of sexual obsession, amorality, and evil.From the Paperback edition.

Taking the mystery community by storm, this Elvis Cole novel was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, Shamus, and Macavity awards and won both the Anthony and Macavity for Best Novel of the Year. From the Paperback edition.

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.

In his major New York Times bestseller, The Last Detective, Robert Crais returned to his signature characters, private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike. Now Crais delivers a stunning, edge-of-your-seat suspense novel that leads Elvis to the very thing he’s always searched for— the dark secrets of his own life—as well as a brutal killer determined to stop him.Los Angeles, 3:58 a.m.: Elvis Cole receives the phone call he’s been waiting for since childhood. Responding to a gunshot, the LAPD has found an injured man in an alleyway. He has told the officer on the scene that he is looking for his son, Elvis Cole. Minutes later, the man is dead.Haunted throughout his life by a lack of knowledge about his father, Elvis turns to the one person who can help him navigate the minefield of his past— his longtime partner and confidant, Joe Pike. Together with hard-edged LAPD detective, Carol Starkey, they launch a feverish search for the dead man’s identity—even as Elvis struggles between wanting to believe he’s found his father at last and allowing his suspicions to hold him back. With each long-buried clue they unearth, a frightening picture begins to emerge about who the dead man might have been and the terrible secret he’s been guarding. At the same time, Elvis has no way of knowing he has awakened a sleeping monster. The further he goes in his investigation, the closer he draws to a merciless killer who is violently connected to the unidentified man’s past. This psychopath believes Cole is hunting him, and he goes on the attack to find Elvis before Elvis can find him.Summoning all the powerful elements that have made Robert Crais one of the preeminent crime writers today, The Forgotten Man is a spectacular tour-de-force of suspense and intrigue.From the Hardcover edition.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERInvestigator Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike take on the deadliest case of their lives in the new masterpiece of suspense from #1 New York Times-bestselling author Robert Crais.It seemed like a simple case—before the bodies started piling up...      When single-mother Devon Connor hires Elvis Cole, it’s because her troubled teenage son Tyson is flashing cash and she’s afraid he’s dealing drugs. But the truth is devastatingly different. With two others, he’s been responsible for a string of high-end burglaries, a crime spree that takes a deadly turn when one of them is murdered and Tyson and his girlfriend disappear.They stole the wrong thing from the wrong man, and, determined to get it back, he has hired two men who are smart and brutal and the best at what they do.To even the odds, Cole brings in his friend Joe Pike, but even the two of them together may be overmatched. The police don’t want them anywhere near the investigation, the teenagers refuse to be found, and the hired killers are leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. Pretty soon, they’ll find out everything they need to know to track the kids down—and then nothing that Elvis or Joe can do may make any difference. It might even get them killed.