War hero turned private eye is a tried and terrific formula

There is a long tradition, in crime literature, of partners in crime - busting. Sherlock Holmes had Watson, Spenser had Hawk and our protagonist Elvis Cole has Joe Pike.

Elvis is a former US Army Ranger turned private eye in, where else, but Los Angeles (LA).

He does suryanamaskaar and taekwando to keep fit, has a wry self-deprecating sense of humour and an ever endearing commitment to that which is right - the moral high ground.

Shades of Phillip Marlow, you would say cynically; copycat crime thrillers, you would add dismissively, and you would be both right and very wrong indeed.

Marlow is, in fact, the prototype for most private dicks in the Western hemisphere, but in skilled hands, stereotypes can become enormously entertaining.

The warrior-hero stereotype has worked beautifully since time immemorial, remember? And Robert Crais is remarkably expert at his craft.

Cole’s partner is the strong, silent, lethal and vegetarian Joe Pike - a former Special Forces operative who owns a gun store, runs, meditates and shoots people when required.

And there is more. There is the enormously attractive Maggie, a black and tan, eighty-five pound German Shepherd.

A trained army dog, she was invalided out when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) killed her first handler and seriously injured her in Afghanistan, and was absorbed into the K-9 unit of the LA Police Department (LAPD) .

A purportedly senior executive of a company that does secret work for the government hires Cole to find a colleague and friend who has disappeared in strange circumstances. The "friend" is a chemical engineer – an expert in the manufacture of explosives.

The client gives Cole a tentative lead in the form of an address. Checking out the address lands Cole in the middle of a major police operation that evolves from a pursuit of a wanted criminal to a serious investigation that has "terror" written all over it.

A variety of evil-doers crawl out of the woodwork and Elvis has to deal with their nefarious machinations along with handling a strangely secretive client and a suspicious police department certain that Elvis is holding out on them.

The police are right, of course. No self-respecting private eye gives away his client to the cops. He solves the mystery on his own, with a little help from Pike, Maggie and her handler - LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James.

Crais creates a tight, fast-paced narrative, a complicated and slightly way-out plot and peoples it all with very interesting characters.

The end result is a thriller that is a delightful "time-pass"- the highest compliment, in my book, for a work in the "entertainment" space.