>Many thanks for twigging me to Robert Crais. I've now read all of his books including his latest (out in hardcover). I know you know that he has one book sort of outside the Elvis Cole series (The Watchman - a Joe Pike book), but did you know that he also has another called Demolition Angel that is a Carol Starkey book? Unlike the Joe Pike book, Cole doesn't make an appearance. It takes place before she meets Cole. It's as good as all the others.
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>Again. Thanks.

IIRC Carol Starkey turns up in another of Crais's books in a lesser role.

Pike is quite a character, isn't he?

Lately I have been reading some mysteries, too. (If you call Crais's books mysteries, which in a way they aren't). One was "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," the Swedish book that has been getting so much attention. And then I went all the way back to the source, Raymond Chandler, rereading "The Long Goodbye." Chandler had enough personal problems for half a dozen troubled writers but he wrote like an angel. A hard boiled angel, granted, but still an angel ;-)