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Robert Crais

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Robert Crais

in Louisiana, The United States

Robert Crais is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. A native of Louisiana, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a blue collar family of oil refinery workers and police officers. He purchased a secondhand 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. Other literary influences include Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck.
After years of amateur film-making and writing short 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 nume Robert Crais is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. A native of Louisiana, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a blue collar family of oil refinery workers and police officers. He purchased a secondhand 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. Other literary influences include Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck.
After years of amateur film-making and writing short 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 numerous series pilots and Movies-of-the-Week for the major networks. He received an Emmy nomination for his work on Hill Street Blues, but is most proud of his 4-hour NBC miniseries, Cross of Fire, which the New York Times declared: "A searing and powerful documentation of the Ku Klux Klan’s rise to national prominence in the 20s."
In the mid-eighties, 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. (See the WORKS section for additional titles.) Elvis Cole’s readership and fan base grew with each new book, then 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. In this new way of telling his stories, Crais combined the classic ‘first person’ narrative of the American detective novel with flashbacks, multiple story lines, multiple points-of-view, and literary elements to better illuminate his themes. 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. Starkey has since become a leading character in the Elvis Cole series. 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. Additionally, 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.
Elvis Cole returned in 2003 with the publication of The Last Detective, followed by the tenth Elvis Cole novel, The Forgotten Man, in 2005. Both novels explore with increasing depth the natures and characters of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. RC’s third stand-alone novel, The Two Minute Rule, was published in 2006. The eleventh entry in the Elvis Cole series, The Watchman, will be published sometime in 2007. ...more

The Monkey's Raincoat (Elvi... The Monkey's Raincoat (Elvis Cole, #1) 4.01 avg rating — 28,808 ratings — published 1987 —67 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
The Watchman (Elvis Cole, #... The Watchman (Elvis Cole, #11; Joe Pike, #1) 4.13 avg rating — 26,897 ratings — published 2007 —97 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
Suspect (Scott James & Magg... Suspect (Scott James & Maggie, #1) 4.18 avg rating — 24,678 ratings — published 2013 —68 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
The First Rule (Elvis Cole,... The First Rule (Elvis Cole, #13; Joe Pike, #2) 4.23 avg rating — 23,156 ratings — published 2010 —70 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
The Sentry (Elvis Cole, #14... The Sentry (Elvis Cole, #14; Joe Pike, #3) 4.23 avg rating — 21,959 ratings — published 2011 —74 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
L.A. Requiem (Elvis Cole, #8) L.A. Requiem (Elvis Cole, #8) 4.30 avg rating — 21,188 ratings — published 1999 —89 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
Taken (Elvis Cole, #15; Joe... Taken (Elvis Cole, #15; Joe Pike, #4) 4.22 avg rating — 20,058 ratings — published 2012 —72 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
The Last Detective (Elvis C... The Last Detective (Elvis Cole, #9) 4.27 avg rating — 19,733 ratings — published 2003 —25 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
Chasing Darkness (Elvis Col... Chasing Darkness (Elvis Cole, #12) 4.22 avg rating — 18,821 ratings — published 2008 —16 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
The Promise (Elvis Cole, #1... The Promise (Elvis Cole, #16; Joe Pike, #5; Scott James & Maggie, #2) 4.26 avg rating — 17,498 ratings — published 2015 —2 editions Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars

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Joe Pike (9 books)
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“There isn't so much love in the world that you can turn it away when it's offered.”
― Robert Crais

“She asked me why I always had something flip to say. I said that I didn't know, but having been blessed with the gift, I felt obliged to use it.”
― Robert Crais

“Adults always wonder what to say and how to say it when they're talking to a child. You want to be wise, but all you are is a child yourself in a larger body. Nothing is ever what it seems. The things that you think you know are never certain. I know that now. I wish that I didn't, but I do.”
― Robert Crais, The Last Detective

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