The Watchman (Joe Pike)

In Joe Pike, "the world's greatest detective's" enigmatic and stoically violent sidekick of the "Elvis Cole" novels, the talented Robert Crais has created one of most intriguing characters in contemporary popular fiction. But with the wisecracking Cole still mostly sidelined from injuries suffered in "The Forgotten Man", Pike takes center stage in this well plotted, fast moving crime drama.

With his red-arrowed deltoids "going forward, never back", Pike, to repay an old debt, reluctantly takes on the task of protecting Larkin Barkley, a spoiled LA society brat drawn with shades of Paris Hilton, right down to the rat-dog-in-the-purse detail. Returning home from late night revelry, Barkley t-bones a Mercedes full of the wrong people, and in a convoluted twist, ends up as a witness under protection. But when it becomes clear that the folks who'd prefer that Barkley not testify are deadly serious, Joe Pike gets the job of keeping the pouting debutant safe and sound.

As always, Crais' prose is witty and fast moving. Joe Pike, who is about as chatty as Mount Rushmore, is cleverly contrasted against Larkin's tantrums. And Elvis Cole, while taking care not to swing the spotlight too far away from Pike's solo debut, throws around enough of his patented one-liners to keep his hardcore base smiling. But if the bond that builds gradually between Joe and Barkley stretches the bounds of credibility just a bit, this is, after all, fiction, and besides, Crais does a masterful job of building the sexual tension and creating - perish the thought - the hint of a soft side to Pike's impenetrable persona.

While perhaps lacking the edge and grit of today's "garage writers of grime" - guys like Charlie Huston, Duane Swierczynski, Charlie Stella, or Victor Gischler - Crais' polished pages capture LA's sleaze and majesty, designed for appeal to broad audiences. All in all, a slick and well-rendered effort from one of today's best writers of mainstream fiction - top entertainment that is well worth the time and the 15-buck hardcover.

Finally Crais has written a book about Joe Pike with Elvis Cole as his sidekick. And we finally find out quite a bit about Joe's past and how he got to be fiction's "baddest hardass". All fans of Crais' books will love this one as well.

The beginning finds a rich, self-indulged, brat who accidentally gets in a fender bender in the middle of the night. The narration feels like cinema verite. The camera bounces around a lot. This creates a lot of confusion and nausea in the reader. But, like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT there is not much point to it. I was introduced to JOE PIKE in THE MONKEY'S RAINCOAT. He was reticent, menacing, violent, compelling and cool. Here the reader learns a lot about Joe. He was abused as a child; then grew big and strong and served in Special Forces in 'Nam and as a mercenary in Africa and parts unknown. His rookie cop year is illuminated in great detail. I feel I have spent too much time with Joe Pike; a character who doesn't speak. A character with the narrative skills of Harpo Marx is best as a side kick. Also our insufferable heroine is like Paris Hilton. Joe must save her from Muslim money laundering terrorists. Even after her epiphany she is only a little less than an obnoxious, rich, brat. It is true; Joe uses some explosive violence and dim mak to subdue bad guys. Dim mak is a secret fighting technique that killed Bruce Lee so it is cool for RC to use it here. But overall the plot and characters just don't meld together. It feels like a very ordinary pot boiler the main purpose of which is to get bill collectors off the author's back. The last chapter is so wierd it feels like a graft written by the writer's apprentice. This is a long 386 page read. I summarize the book as uneven pacing followed by inadequate payoff.

This was a pretty good read until about the middle and too many new characters were introduced for me to keep up with.I was confused for the rest of the book which took away from being able to understand the ending.

After reading all of the Elvis Cole novels I thought a Joe Pike novel would be great fun. It isn't. Rather its about Joe babysitting a stupid society brat who is full of herself. She has to hide, has almost been killed a couple of times and she is still whining that she wants to go home. Joe makes her cut and dye her hair but lets her keep wearing her $500 jeans. Please give me a break. She runs off to dance half naked on a table in a bar showing the dolphin tattoo on her butt. Surely somebody has to recognize the halfwit. Joe however forgives her. This isn't the Joe Pike we have seen in earlier pages. Lastly Joe actually falls in love with this piece of trash. Perhaps Crais thought we wanted to see a kinder gentler dumber Joe. He was wrong. Oh finally the plot is garbage equal to the rest of this disappointing effort.