Synopses & Reviews
In The Watchman and The First Rule, Robert Crais put Joe Pike front and center for the first time, to remarkable effect: a oeA beautifully crafted piece of story-tellinga (The Seattle Times); a oeA high-octane thriller... Pikea (TM)s unshakable belief in right and wrong provides a moral centera (South Florida Sun-Sentinel); a oeJoe Pike is a joy to watch, an urban Zen warrior priest righting wrongs. More Pike, pleasea (Chicago Sun-Times).
But when Joe Pike does return, it is to a case that will rock him to his core.
Five years ago, Dru Rayne and her uncle fled from Louisiana to Los Angeles after Hurricane Katrina hit, but now they face a different kind of danger. A neighborhood protection gang savagely beats Drua (TM)s uncle, but Pike witnesses it and offers his own brand of protection. Oddly enough, neither of them seems to want it a and neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching their storefront, men who appear quite willing to let the gang have its way.
None of that deters Pike a therea (TM)s something about Dru that touches him and he wona (TM)t back away, whether she wants his help or not a but as the level of violence escalates, and Pike himself becomes a target, he and Elvis Cole begin to discover some things. Dru and her uncle are not who they seem, and everything Pike thought he knew about them, their relationship to the gang, and the reasons they fled New Orleans a ita (TM)s all been lies. A vengeful and murderous force is catching up to them... and ita (TM)s perfectly happy to sweep Pike and Cole up in its wake.
Synopsis
In The Watchman and The First Rule, Robert Crais put Joe Pike front and center for the first time, to remarkable effect: a oeA beautifully crafted piece of story-tellinga (The Seattle Times); a oeA high-octane thriller... Pikea (TM)s unshakable belief in right and wrong provides a moral centera (South Florida Sun-Sentinel); a oeJoe Pike is a joy to watch, an urban Zen warrior priest righting wrongs. More Pike, pleasea (Chicago Sun-Times).
But when Joe Pike does return, it is to a case that will rock him to his core.
Five years ago, Dru Rayne and her uncle fled from Louisiana to Los Angeles after Hurricane Katrina hit, but now they face a different kind of danger. A neighborhood protection gang savagely beats Drua (TM)s uncle, but Pike witnesses it and offers his own brand of protection. Oddly enough, neither of them seems to want it a and neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching their storefront, men who appear quite willing to let the gang have its way.
None of that deters Pike a therea (TM)s something about Dru that touches him and he wona (TM)t back away, whether she wants his help or not a but as the level of violence escalates, and Pike himself becomes a target, he and Elvis Cole begin to discover some things. Dru and her uncle are not who they seem, and everything Pike thought he knew about them, their relationship to the gang, and the reasons they fled New Orleans a ita (TM)s all been lies. A vengeful and murderous force is catching up to them... and ita (TM)s perfectly happy to sweep Pike and Cole up in its wake.
Synopsis
Private investigators Joe Pike and Elvis Cole get double-crossed in this twisty, gripping New York Times bestseller that will have readers on the edge of their seats.
When gangbangers shake down the modest owner of a Los Angeles eatery, Joe Pike intervenes. For all intents and purposes, Pike saved Wilson Smith's life. But for reasons of their own, Smith and his lovely niece, Dru, are curiously resentful. It's only when Pike's feelings for the woman deepen that he and his partner, Elvis Cole, discover that Dru and her uncle are not at all who they seem, and everything Pike has learned about them is a lie. But it's much more than a deception. It's a trap. And with every new twist it's proving to be a killer.