I Picked Up This Book Because: curiosity

The Story:

I love stories of people who know their passions and go after them with all their might. Elvis has known he wanted to be in radio since he was an 8 year old sitting on his grandmother's couch and he has pursued his dream all his life.

The Random Thoughts:



The Score Card:



4 Stars

In the darkness, everyone is alone.

None to speak to you but silence,
The quiet of words unspoken,
An old friend scarce known.
A silence we dread to see broken,
Yet somehow constantly bemoan.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

If you internet search Robert Crais it is interesting to note that he was greatly influenced by the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. It you add this piece of information to the fact that he was a writer for some early 80's made for TV series (Hill Street blues, Cagney and Lacy) then you will have an understanding of the writing style of this author.  

I thoroughly enjoyed "The Wanted". Elvis Cole is helping out an old friend Devon, it would appear that her son has been involved in a series of robberies and things become very serious when Devon discovers a very rare and valuable Rolex watch in her son's bedroom. He calls in his associate and partner Joe Pike (tattoos and the permanent wearing of shades!) and together both must act quickly to safeguard Tyson and his comrade in arms a young immature girl called Amber. Elvis Cole is not your ordinary detective, rather than drink (which seems to be the flaw of most cops) he likes to cook.."I turned up a package of frozen peas, two stalks of asparagus, and a lemon. Inspired. I filled a pot with water threw in some salt, and kicked op the heat. "....

Two assassins have been hired to find a stolen laptop presumably removed by the thieves Tyson and Amber,  containing information that might incriminate their client, The race is on for Elvis Cole aided by his ever present sidekick Joe Pike to find the two remaining teenage burglars  and try to explain to them the error of their ways, This is a fast stripped down detective story and in some ways feels a bit like a script made for TV, nevertheless very enjoyable. Sometimes all you want when reading a book is an easy to follow storyline and neat very readable prose which is certainly in abundance here..."schooling like orchestral sharks at a blood-drunk feast."....."men with dusty boots and women with rough hands."...."as out of place on the lovely street as a fly in a glass of juice."...

As always Robert Crais delivers in his own recognizable style making for a very enjoyable and fast read. Many thanks to the food people of netgalley for a gratis copy in exchange for an honest review and that is what I have written

A single mom has worries about the way that her teen-aged son is behaving -- and when you add in flashy clothes, a Rolex, and more money in his pocket than most book bloggers have in their checking account. So, she hires Elvis to figure out what the bad news is.

It takes The World's Fastest Detective just a couple of hours to figure out what Tyson has been up to, and it's not good: Tyson and a couple of friends have been breaking into empty homes and making off with all sorts of high-end merchandise. Think The Bling Ring, but without anything for Emma Watson to do. Multiple security companies, insurance investigators as well as the police have been hunting for them, and Elvis has stumbled onto the trail.

Of all those on the hunt for this crew, one team is closer to finding them than Elvis is -- and these two seem to be leaving a lot of bodies in their wake. They're identified right from the get-go, so I don't mind talking about them too much. They've clearly been partners for a long time -- the give and take between the pair is enough to almost make you forget they're horrible people. At one point, the two get into a discussion about the appropriateness of the word "retard" in conversation, another conversation is about the depiction of women in moves/fiction, and they get into a big argument about annoying ringtones that one of them is using. If they weren't going around killing people for mysterious, yet clearly nefarious, reasons, I could really like them (or, if Crais was going for a Tarantino/Leonard thing with them).

The pacing on this is relentless -- well, it's obvious to the reader right off that the clock is ticking, but once Elvis catches up to what we know, things are almost non-stop. It's similar to Taken, but without the jumping around in time, Crais knows how to handle the tension and momentum just right so the suspense is genuine. It also reminded me of The Watchman, in that you have Elvis and Cole trying to protect a self-involved teen (or two) on the run from some very determined killers.

In so many ways this is classic Elvis Cole: Joe Pike doesn't do much -- it's almost like the early books, he shows up does his Batman kind of thing, and vanishes. It was a nice way to deal with him -- we don't want to get too chummy with Pike, he looses a bit of the mystique that way. When he does act -- we get our money's worth. John Chen is very John Chen-y, which is always fun (as long as we don't get too much of him). We get some quick visits with some other old friends, too. Elvis cooks like hosts on Food Network aspire to. All the mainstays are there.

Slipping in every now and then between the adrenaline from the chase and the fan service is a solid emotional grounding that was as effective as it was unexpected.

Time with a couple of old favorites, an almost perfectly constructed thriller, and some solid emotional moments -- who could ask for more? From the hitting-the-ground-running beginning through to the very touching ending, this is a heckuva read that should please fans new and old.

Elvis Takes a Back Seat by award-winning novelist Leanna Ellis is the endearing story of Claudia, a young widow determined to fulfill her husband’s last request by hauling a three-foot bust of Elvis Presley in the backseat of a vintage Cadillac from Dallas to Memphis to return it to its rightful owner. The road trip—taken with an eccentric aunt who actually knew the “King of Rock ’n’ Roll,” and a temperamental teen with a suspicious mind of her own—hits some royal roadblocks and detours as these women uncover pieces of their past along with the bust’s mysterious history. What they find along the way changes their lives forever, inspiring readers to also step out in faith.

Amazon.com

Recently widowed Claudia McIntosh, after some internal debating, decides to fulfill her husband's last request to return his 3 ft tall ceramic Elvis bust back to its original owner. She's confused as to what he means by "original owner" because she thought it had always been his. To make things even more fun, he doesn't tell her who this original owner was or is!  Still, she sets out to drive from Dallas, TX to Memphis, TN, hoping that a trip to Graceland will give her some answers. Joining her on this road trip are her aunt Rae (who claims to have hung with the real Elvis) and Ivy, the moody teen daughter of Claudia's longtime friend and boss, Ben.

Ivy has been emotionally closed off since her mother walked out on the family years ago. It is Ben's hope that Ivy going on this trip with fun-loving Claudia and Rhea will give Ivy the comfort and confidence to start opening up again. Little does he know that Ivy's interest in this trip has to do with her learning that her birth mother may be living in Tennessee.

Readers can expect to find your standard road trip novel where each character involved moves along happy-go-lucky until being thrust into various situations that have them having some sort of A-HA moment. Claudia, feeling bereft of the mothering aspect of her life, finds another way to get her mothering on through watching over Ivy. Watching Ivy work through her conflicted emotions regarding her mother, Claudia finally faces her own emotions surrounding HER mother's abandonment. Rae uses her life stories as lessons on how not to run from pain but through the course of the story has to learn how to actually live by her own message.

Some lessons come hard. I watch her face change, petulant one minute, angry, shamed, and sad the next. Why did it seem a rite of passage for young women to be treated poorly by men?

Probably no surprise, but each chapter features a title that references an Elvis song that also gives hints to what's ahead in that chapter. Sometimes the Elvis references throughout the story itself feel a bit unnatural, forced into the story just to get the Elvis theme in there enough, but at other times it's as entertaining as EP fans might hope for. The dialogue, at times, seemed like it relied too much on platitude-heavy conversations that just didn't sound like how the average person would converse and the humor, though it had its good moments, also had parts where the joke didn't quite land. The ending was largely predictable but there was one small surprising twist in the story's closing. The ending did turn more preachy than I was expecting. Having religion mentioned is not necessarily out of place in this kind of story, as Elvis Presley himself was a deeply religious man, but even so it got a bit heavy-handed there near the end, I have to say... to the point of making the closing scenes somewhat cringey and laughable. It felt as if Ellis was really reaching to tie in the godly aspect.. but it ended up coming off clunky and unnatural. 

All in all, it wasn't a bad little trip to take with these ladies but something about it in general felt a wee bit flat for me. And maybe part of my minor dissatisfaction comes from how tiresome I sometimes found Claudia and Ivy (for different reasons). I appreciated that some tougher topics were addressed along with the light-hearted, comical moments but in the end felt the more serious bits were still played a bit too safe for me.