Joe Pike rescues young bank teller Isabel Roland from two abductors, and then things get complicated. The abductors are murdered, Izzy vanishes, and Joe's buddy Elvis digs up a crazy family story involving whistle-blowing, the Witness Relocation Program, and more.
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Starred review from June 24, 2019
In MWA Grand Master Crais’s outstanding 18th Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novel (after 2017’s The Wanted), Elvis, a private detective, and Joe, a very private paramilitary contractor, try to determine why young Los Angeles bank teller Isabel Roland was seized by kidnappers after she left the bank on a lunch break. Only Joe’s fortuitous intervention saved her at the time—but another kidnapping attempt succeeds. But who wants Isabel and why? Now Joe and Elvis have to locate Isabel and rescue her from a coterie of extremely proficient hired guns. Crais begins the story with deceptive simplicity but slowly ratchets up both the tension and the action with surgical precision. The scenes in which Joe saves Isabel from her captors and the final shoot-out among a colorful array of hit men, police, and U.S. Marshals stand as high-water marks among Crais’s illustrious crime oeuvre. So, who is the dangerous man to which the book’s title refers? Who but the stoic Joe Pike, demonstrating yet again why the particular kind of danger he carries is just plain off the charts. This one’s sure to hit the bestseller charts. Author tour. Agent: Aaron Priest, Aaron M. Priest Literary.
Starred review from July 15, 2019
If you've always wished Lee Child's Jack Reacher had a little more balance in his life--but the same formidable talents--you'll love Joe Pike and the latest book in this long, superb series (The Wanted, 2017, etc.). All Joe wanted to do was go to the bank and make a deposit. He knew Isabel Roland, the young teller, seemed a little interested in him, but he doesn't mix romance and money. Sitting in his car shortly after leaving the bank, though, he notices Isabel walking outside and putting on a pair of sunglasses, and then he sees her talking to a man and disappearing into an SUV with him, "a flash of shock in her eyes." Joe's training--which includes stints in the Marine Corps, the Los Angeles Police Department, and "various private military contractors"--makes him sit up and pay attention. He follows along in his own Jeep, and when the SUV stops for a traffic light, Isabel's abductors don't stand a chance. Then, when Isabel is kidnapped again, Joe feels compelled to find her. He enlists Elvis Cole, his longtime friend and private eye, whose laconic style and sharp wit are a helpful counterbalance to Joe's terse style. As they search for answers, more dead bodies pile up, and the men wonder just how innocent this bank teller really is. Told from the alternating perspectives of Joe, Elvis, and various criminals, the story becomes multilayered while the tension builds. Crais never loses control of his clean, clear prose or his ability to sketch fully fleshed characters in a few scenes, with Joe providing the action and Elvis providing the insight. A taut, exceptional thriller.
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Starred review from July 1, 2019
Joe Pike, ex-cop, ex-military, and sometime mercenary, goes to his bank to do a little routine business. The young teller who helps him leaves for lunch a few minutes later. Outside, she's snatched by two men, who toss her into the backseat of a car. Pike sees what's happening and quickly disables the two men and brings in the cops to clean up. Isabel Roland, the teller, assumes she was the potential victim of a sex kidnapping. When the two kidnappers are released on bond and subsequently murdered, it's apparent something else is going on. Isabel disappears. Pike enlists his partner, PI Elvis Cole, to investigate. A retired U.S. marshal, whom Isabel called Uncle Ted, is also dead. He was brutally tortured before death. Cole digs deeper and finds indications that Ted, who was involved in the witness protection program, had relocated Isabel's parents to protect them. Cole isn't the human wrecking ball that Pike is, but he's no slouch as a detective, and the two find Isabel promptly, with Pike dispatching some bad guys along the way. But Isabel's hunters keep coming. Crais is a whip-smart writer. Cole and Pike are carefully drawn, multilayered characters who've grown more complex through the years. This is one of the very best entries in a long-running and still first-rate series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)