CompleteMartialArts.com - Forgotten Man, The (Elvis Cole)
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List Price: $29.95
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio Cassette
Format: Bargain Price
Number Of Items: 6
Publication Date: 2005-02-15
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Editorial Reviews:
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Elvis Cole is back...
With his acclaimed bestsellers, Hostage (a New York Times Notable Book) and Demolition Angel, Robert Crais drew raves for his unstoppable pacing, edgy characterizations, and cinematic prose. Now, in The Last Detective, Crais returns to his signature character, Los Angeles private investigator Elvis Cole, in a masterful page-turner that probes the meaning of family and the burdens of the past.
Elvis Cole's relationship with attorney Lucy Chenier is strained. When she moved from Louisiana to join Elvis in Los Angeles, she never dreamed that violence would so easily touch her life -- but then the unthinkable happens. While Lucy is away on business and her ten-year-old son, Ben, is staying with Elvis, Ben disappears without a trace. Desperate to believe that the boy has run away, evidence soon mounts to suggest a much darker scenario.
Joining forces with his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, Elvis frantically searches for Ben with the help of LAPD Detective Carol Starkey, as Lucy's wealthy, oil-industry ex-husband attempts to wrest control of the investigation. Amid the maelstrom of personal conflicts, Elvis and Joe are forced to consider a more troubling lead -- one indicating that Ben's disappearance is connected to a terrible, long-held secret from Elvis Cole's past.
Venturing deep inside a complex psyche, Crais explores Elvis's need for family - the military that embraced him during a troubled adolescence, his rock-solid partnership with Pike, and his floundering relationship with Lucy - as they race the clock in their search for Ben. The Last Detective is Robert Crais' richest, most intense tale of suspense yet.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Fun, suspenseful, and engaging!
Comment: This was my first Robert Crais book and I can understand why he has such a following.
This book grabs you from the start. The protagonist, Elvis, is slowly revealed through wonderful flashbacks as he tries to discover the identity of a murder victim who claimed, with his dying breath, that Elvis was his son. Since Elvis never knew his father, this is possible and the situation builds reader curiosity.
The dialogue throughout is great. It is real and tangible. Crais knows how to set up a scene. Reading the book is like watching a movie in your mind!
Each chapter brings the reader a bit closer to the identity of the murder victim. Even as the murder man's identity is revealed, the plot moves to finding the murderer and the motive. A fascinating ride of a book.
Jump on, you'll be pleased you did. Crais is every bit as good as Lee Child and Elvis might even be a bit more believable than Jack Reacher.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, But Not one of Crais's Best
Comment: I'm currently reading Robert Crais's "Elvis Cole" books in order, and have very much enjoyed the series as a whole. THE FORGOTTEN MAN is the tenth entry in the series, and deals with a murdered man who may or may not be Cole's long-lost father. It's an enjoyable story, but not one of Crais's best efforts.
Crais is trying to juggle a lot of different subplots in THE FORGOTTEN MAN, and I think his plotting loses some of its sharpness here. In particular, I could have done without the silly romantic subplot between Cole and Carol Starkey, who harbors a romantic obsession with Cole for no discernable reason. Crais has never been good at writing romance, and all the love triangle stuff in this book is largely unconvincing.
The murder plot was decently written, but was a bit too convoluted to hold my interest. Crais constantly changes points of view in this novel, which disrupts the story's momentum. The novel's final twist is quite a surprise, but isn't the least bit believable. Further, fans of Joe Pike will be disappointed by his small role in THE FORGOTTEN MAN, which is little more than a cameo.
Overall, this is just an okay effort by Crais, although it is far better written than your average detective novel. My only major advice is to read LA REQUIEM and THE LAST DETECTIVE before reading this one, since it continues plotlines that were started in those earlier novels.
Customer Rating:
Summary: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "ELVIS COLE FANS LEARN A LOT ABOUT ELVIS'S MYSTERIOUS YOUTH!"
Comment: "THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS WITH MURDER. IT WOULD HAUNT THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED HERE AND THE COPS WHO INVESTIGATED THE CASE AND THE FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF THE VICTIMS AND THE LITTLE GIRL MOST OF ALL. THE MURDER WOULD CHANGE HER. SHE WOULD BECOME SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHO SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN. SHE WOULD GROW INTO SOMEONE ELSE."
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Whether you're an existing Robert Crais fan, or if this is your first book in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series, you're in for a literary treat. As a great fan of Crais, I am always amazed how he so seamlessly mixes action and humor, with what actually amounts to silky emotional prose, in the middle of bullets, fists, and wit, and it almost seems effortless.
The story starts off with a flashback to the scene of a brutal and massively bloody crime scene. A Mother, Father, and son are found beaten brutally to death. In the midst of this bloody carnage are petite little foot prints through the pools of blood that led into a dark bedroom where the policeman found a little girl that could not have been more than four-years-old sucking her index finger. From that haunting scene we are transported to present day Los Angeles, where the "WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE" Elvis Cole gets a call from a Los Angeles homicide detective, telling Elvis that they found an old man in an alley dying of a gunshot wound holding old newspaper clippings of Elvis's prior heroics. His last words stated that he was Cole's long-lost Father, whose unknown identity has plagued Elvis throughout his entire life.
This leads to a multi-faceted story that includes Elvis being considered a murder suspect. So along with Cole trying to clear his own name, he is also trying to solve the biggest mystery of his entire life that he has even kept hidden from his closest friend Joe Pike... and that is... who is his Father? This gripping tale includes fake names and relationships, escort services, sexual blackmail, favors being called in from old friends and acquaintances, and a number of bittersweet poignant flashbacks to Elvis's youth, where he ran away from home on more than a handful of occasions in search for his elusive, unknown Father. A good example of the author's prose comes during one of the flashbacks when young Elvis is in a car with a detective that was hired by Elvis's Grandfather to find and retrieve him from another of his runaway attempts to find his nameless Father: "DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR MOM GOES WHEN SHE DISAPPEARS? THE HARDNESS DROPPED FROM THE BOY'S FACE LIKE FOG HIDING FROM THE SUN. HE STARED AT WILSON WITH WIDE, EXPECTANT EYES."
As an experienced Crais reader I find myself looking forward to his velvety use of words, which at times is like pulling silk over polished steel, with as much anticipation as I do his action sequences. Another example: "THE SALTON SEA WAS THE LARGEST, LOWEST LAKE IN CALIFORNIA, FILLING THE BROAD, FLAT BASIN OF THE SALTON SINK LIKE A MIRROR LAID ON THE DESERT FLOOR. IT WAS SHALLOW BECAUSE THE LAND WAS FLAT, AND SURROUNDED BY BARREN DESERT AND SCORCHED ROCKS LIKE SOME FORGOTTEN PUDDLE IN HELL." And of course his short-biting parenthetical humor, such as when he meets a woman that talked too much: "JANICE TALKED SO MUCH IT WAS LIKE DROWNING IN A VERBAL NIAGARA FALLS."
Robert Crais is at the top of his game and has created an Elvis Cole/Joe Pike genre that his fans can't get enough of. I recommend this book highly.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The first book I've read in the Elvis Cole series, and I'm hooked!
Comment: The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais is the 10th Elvis Cole novel, and my first. Not my first Crais novel, however. I've enjoyed Hostage and Two-Minute Rule on CD and found The Forgotten Man to be an exceptional book as well. By beginning at the tenth book in the series, I knew I took a chance. If Elvis Cole didn't reach out and grab me, or if Crais didn't create a novel that could stand on its own merits, then I doubt I would ever read another book in the series. But Crais does it, he has written a book full of twists, turns and interesting characters that guarantee I'll be checking out other novels in the series.
The events in the last novel have really struck Cole hard. He rarely makes it into the office. One night, he gets a call from a Detective Diaz about a man, who as he was dying, said he was Cole's father. Cole is doubtful, but drawn to the case because he had never met his father. The lack of a father left a large void in his life, and Cole has never given up hope in finding his real father. Cole and Diaz agree to share work on the case and Cole begins looking into the true identity of the dying man. Was he really his father? If not, who was he?
The novel also follows Frederick Conrad, a mild man out the outside hiding the soul of a ruthless killer. Who is Conrad and how does he relate to the man claiming to be Cole's father? The novel is full of twists, some that were quite surprising. But even better were the characters. Carole Starkey and Joe Pike make solid contributions to the story. Starkey is the detective who helps Cole with police issues and harbors a crush on the man. Pike provides the muscle. The only slow part of the novel had to be the flashback to Cole's childhood when he goes on a hunt for his father at a traveling circus. Other than that, I found the entire novel to be engaging, and entertaining enough for me to want to read the rest of the series.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Truly a great detective book (a review of the audiobook)
Comment: Elvis Cole never fails to entertain. This is a great detective book, but also just a great novel. A book club could sift through this one and come up with plenty to discuss about familial love, fathers and sons, and the love of friends.
I listen to audiobooks to help with the tedium of my commute to work. Unlike my last audiobook by a better-known author, this book grabbed my attention and held it throughout - not a yawn, no wondering if I was wasting my time with this book. I looked forward to the drive just to listen some more. James Daniels does a great job as the narrator - he covers multiple voices, giving each its unique sound and cadence.
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