Spanking the Monkey....... (The Monkey's Raincoat - Robert Crais)

Member Name: sparkymarky1973

Product:	The Monkey's Raincoat - Robert Crais
Date:	30/04/09 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great, classy Detective thriller that reinvents the genre

Disadvantages: none

The Monkeys Raincoat is the first in a series of novels about Private Eye Elvis Cole and his silent partner, Joe Pike, who doubles as a mercenary for hire. Author Robert Crais is perhaps most recently known for writing the novel Hostage on which the Bruce Willis film of the same name was based but the Elvis Cole novels are where he established his well earnt reputation for classy, modern Detective thrillers that read like a modern day Chandler and are as action-packed as any Hollywood movie!

In his first literary outing, Cole is approached by a distraught young woman, Ellen Lang, and her uptight friend,Janet, because her husband has disappeared with their son. Warned that Cole doesn't do custody work and that he won't snatch back the kid, Ellen nonetheless agrees to hire Elvis to locate wherever the husband might be hiding out. But it doesn't take long to discover that Mort Lang is far from the perfect husband and might well have gotten his hands into something deeper than he can deal with. Then Mort turns up dead with several large bullet holes in him and things really begin to turn nasty. Enter Joe Pike, Cole's partner, who always has his best friend's back well and truly covered. Before the novel reaches it's very bloody climax, all manner of hell will be unleashed and Cole and Pike find themselves taking on some very serious bad guys with the baddest of intentions....

As Private Eye thrillers go, this is amongst the best I have read in a long time. The story is fairly short, not over-complicated and enthralling from the get go. Cole too is a very likeable character, obsessed with Disney figurines and determined not to grow up and yet able to be serious and focused when the situation demands it. Even when things begin to get too hot to handle and the odds stack up against him, Elvis is a man who absolutely will not stop until the job is done and that makes for a very thrilling and gripping read that keeeps the reader on the edge of their seats for the duration.

Summary: A Private Eye takes on more than he bargains for investigating a missing husband.