Book Preview Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California” plays over a high shot of the city of Los Angeles. We PUSH IN on a blond girl, BARBARA “BOBBIE” KEEN on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, early twenties, blond, leggy, vivacious, but poor, two steps north of hipster or homeless. PAN AROUND to REVEAL … Read more
Book Preview I stood over the grave and stared at the curving letters carved into the stone. The way they were written made the name look elegant. The stone itself was flecked with grey and black, like a rock that couldn’t quite decide what color it wanted to be. A hard wind blew past me, … Read more
Book Preview It wasn’t the six-hour flight delay, or even the nine hours on the plane that did it; it was standing in the U.S. Customs line for over an hour and dealing with the accompanying bullshit that made Benjamin Cunningham finally explode. Benjamin was tired; his neck hurt. He’d been in the airport in … Read more
Book Preview Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota They say blood is thicker than water, and while this is literally true, it’s also really annoying. Take it from a girl who’s cleaned up way too much blood in her time. When you take this expression metaphorically, however, it’s actually even worse than laundering your clothes to get … Read more
Book Preview Fifteen Miles Outside Omsukchan Magadan Oblast, Russia The revolution was, in fact, televised, though it was a mercifully short affair. Matfey Krupin had watched it all from the front lines, in Red Square, when the army came marching in to support the people against the tinpot dictator that had held an iron grip … Read more
Book Preview I remember the day my dad left for the last time. He ruffles my hair with his wind, this power he has to control the currents of air. It blows right through my thick, wavy locks like a good wind should. It doesn’t make me smile like it usually does, though, because I’ve … Read more
Book Preview The alley smelled of blood and fear, the stench and signs of death spread all over the red brick. It was a backstreet in Chelsea, a barely passable gap that wouldn’t have qualified as an alley in America. A car might have been able to squeeze through, but only one of the smaller … Read more
Book Preview The Two Minute Rule (2006) Robert Crais * PROLOGUE: MARCHENKO AND PARSONS circled the bank for sixteen minutes, huffing Krylon Royal Blue Metallic to regulate the crystal as they worked up their nut. Marchenko believed Royal Blue Metallic gave them an edge in the bank, made them fierce and wild-eyed, Royal Blue being … Read more
Book Preview The First Rule Joe Pike 02 Robert Crais The organized criminal gangs from the fifteen republics of the former Soviet Union are governed by what they call the Vorovskoy Zakon, the thieves’ code, which is comprised of eighteen written rules. The first rule is this: A thief must forsake his mother, father, brothers, … Read more
Book Preview The Watchman Robert Crais * PROLOGUE: City of Angels THE CITY was hers for a single hour, just the one magic hour, only hers. The morning of the accident, between three and four A. M. when the streets were empty and the angels watched, she flew east on Wilshire Boulevard at eighty miles … Read more
Book Preview Hostage (2001) Crais, Robert * PROLOGUE: The man in the house was going to kill himself. When the man threw his phone into the yard, Talley knew that he had accepted his own death. After six years as a crisis negotiator with the Los Angeles Police Department’s SWAT team, Sergeant Jeff Talley knew … Read more
Book Preview Chasing Darkness (2008) Elvis Cole 11 Robert Crais PROLOGUE: BEAKMAN AND Trenchard could smell the fire it was still a mile away, but a sick desert wind carried the promise of Hell. Fire crews from around the city were converging on Laurel Canyon like red angels, as were black-and-white Adam cars, Emergency Services … Read more
Book Preview The Forgotten Man Robert Crais * The Empty House Temecula , California Late during one of those perfect twilights when the sky shimmered with copper like the last pulse of heat burning out of a body, Padilla and Bigelow turned off the highway onto a narrow residential street that brought them directly into … Read more
Book Preview * PROLOGUE: : The Church of Pike Angoon, Alaska The cold Alaskan water pulled at the fishing boats that lined the dock, the boats straining against their moorings to run free with the tide. The water here in the small harbor at Angoon, a fishing village on the western shore of Admiralty Island … Read more
Book Preview The Islander Palms Motel Uniformed LAPD Officer Joe Pike could hear the banda music even with the engine idling, the a.c. jacked to meat locker, and the two-way crackling callout codes to other units. The covey of Latina street kids clumped outside the arcade giggled at him, whispering things to each other that … Read more
Book Preview SEATTLE At two-fourteen in the morning on the night they left one life to begin their next, the rain thundered down in a raging curtain that thrummed against the house and the porch and the plain white Econoline van that the United States Marshals had brought to whisk them away. Charles said, ‘C’mere, … Read more
Book Preview * PROLOGUE: The sky above the San Fernando Valley that Saturday morning was a deep blue, washed clean of the dirt and chemical particulates that typically color L. A. air by a breeze that burbled out of the San Gabriel Mountains and over the flat valley floor and across the high ridge of … Read more
Book Preview * Semper fidelis. Chapter 1 I met Jodi Taylor and her manager for lunch on the Coast Highway in Malibu , not far from Paradise Cove and the Malibu Colony. The restaurant was perched on the rocks overlooking the ocean, and owned by a chef who had his own cooking show on public … Read more