Gosh, Robert
Crais! I really want to like you, but after lots of books in and it still feels
like gawky blind dating rather than true love.
I should be really digging these Crais novels, but I’m not. A
smart-aleck gauntleting detective with a mean-as-hell friend is something that
I can’t get enough of in other books. But something just isn’t coalescing here.
From Crais first novel, I thought that Crais was doing a west coast version of
Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels and that feeling continues here. It isn’t
Crais’ fault that I’m reading these over many years after he wrote them and
that they seem dated in a lot of ways to me; having said this, there are still just
too many clichés for me to overlook in this. Plus, Elvis is just such a dogged know-it-all
that he tends to get on my nerves. Characters like Marlowe, Spenser or Lehane’s
Patrick Kenzie can be wise asses and tough guys, but it feels like Cole can’t
let the mildest thing go by without trying to act like a comic at karaoke
night. What saves this book Cole’s quick jokes. So quick, he had me laughing
like crazy a few pages in. That's pretty darn quick.
NB: According to BL/GR/LT this is my 400th/396th/394th book review. I believe BL is correct.
NB: According to BL/GR/LT this is my 400th/396th/394th book review. I believe BL is correct.
