Indigo Slam: An Elvis Cole Novel (Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Book 7)

Read in one day. Joe and Elvis involved in a dangerous web of deception. But the three children in the book add an emotional twist to the plot. Surprise ending.

Another very good Elvis Cole and Joe Pike book. Getting in and out of tough spots and dangerous situations throughout the book. Twists and turns all throughout. Good book.

I have now read every Elvis novel and have loved all of them. They are all so different, too, which is refreshing. Elvis, the Greatest Detective in the World, really is. Such a nice guy with a wonderful, quirky sense of humor. This one has him helping out three kids for two hundred counterfeit dollars. Add in Russian bad guys and you get another fast pace thriller.

Dad has disappeared. Terri is a fifteen year old girl struggling to hold the family together and for me she is the surprise star of this story. Her 12 year old brother is an obnoxious, angry brat, and her little eight year old sister is a heartbreaker, a cutie to the max and its Teri's self appointed job to keep everything and all of them together. She shows up at Elvis Cole's door looking for help. Elvis may be the world's greatest detective but he also has a definite white knight complex and these three kids push his savior buttons to the max. What should be a simple missing person case spirals out of control bringing in the Russian mafia with the Feds close on their heels. Staying alive is a struggle, saving those three kids looks beyond even Cole's and the world's toughest guy, Joe Pike's abilities. In depth characterizations combine with with good world building to make this a good if not great Elvis Cole entry. Written in 1997, this is only the seventh of what almost a quarter of a century later is soon to be 17 works comprising the Cole/Pike chronicles and shows Crais's growth curve on his way to being one of the outstanding voices in contemporary crime fiction.

3 1/2 to four stars - definitely not five. A counterfeiter who acted as a government witness against Russian gangsters in Seattle is put into a witness protection program in Salt Lake City by Federal Marshalls. He disappears, along with his three children. Three years later, his children appear in Elvis Cole's office wanting him to find there father. They had been living under a new name in Los Angeles, and he went out 11 days earlier and has not come back. His oldest daughter, fifteen-year-old Teresa, has a wad of cash. Events move on from there.The story is generally well written as Elvis looks for the father, encounters bad guys, finds the father, loses him again, and eventually finds him again. Along the way, he discovers other people are looking for the man, including the Russian gangsters and the Federal Marshalls Service. The Secret Service is also interested, and the FBI becomes involved along with the local police. In a side plot, Elvis also has to deal with his girlfriend's ex-husband.There were, perhaps, too many twists added to the end of the story, and it became a little unreal. Also, the author's description of Seattle settings seemed a little off. Has he ever visited the city? He also keeps referring to Los Angeles hills as mountains. Perhaps he has never seen a real mountain.

My cousin found Robert Crais while searching for audio books to listen on her long drive to work and said I might like his work. I started at the beginning with The Monkey's Raincoat and have read them all back to back without stop. There's not a single one I can put down. I wanted to move to the next book as soon as I finished one. Indigo Slam is no exception. The characters are rich, well defined, funny, strong, smart, clever, heart-breaking and unrelenting. The plot moves quickly, pushing from one piece of info into more action into info into character reveal with surprises along the way. I love when a book in an established genre can surprise me. Joss Whedon (of Buffy and The Avengers fame) makes sure something happens in every scene of his TV shows/movies to make it over-the-top interesting with either action, character reveal, or other info so you want to see each scene multiple times. That's what Crais does with Elvis Cole (and Joe Pike and Scott James) novels. I can already tell Indigo Slam is going to be a book I read multiple times. I'm already on my second go-round and am finding more enjoyment the second time. Can't recommend it enough. It brings new life to my favorite genre of novels.

For me, the mystery of Indigo Slam is why it was out of print for years. Originally published in 1997, it didn't come out in paperback till 2003 (and the hardcover disappeared), while other later Crais novels (including another Cole book) did the usual hardcover-to-paperback cycle and remained on the shelves. Whatever the reason, it's here now and it's really good.Elvis Cole, self-proclaimed World's Greatest Detective, is hired by three children to find their father. Motivated more by conscience than money, he helps them. When it turns out that the father is on the run from the Russian mob, Elvis starts getting in over his head. Fortunately, there is his laconic partner Pike to watch his back.Mystery fans will see a certain similarity between the Cole books and Robert Parker's Spenser. Both feature wise-cracking tough private eyes with mysterious but generally good-hearted partners. Unfortunately, over the years, I found Spenser getting unlikably smug and self-righteous, while Cole remains a pleasure to read about. And both Cole and Pike are much more well-developed than either Spenser or Hawk, neither of whom even reveal their full names (the single-named hero is a bit of a tired gimmick nowadays...Richard Stark's Parker is forgiven because he's been around since the mid-60's).You don't need to have read other Elvis Cole novels to get into this one; Crais makes it easy to get right into things. For fans of the private-eye novel, you'll find this - like all the other novels by Crais - delightfully entertaining.

The tradition of the externally tough, internally sentimental, wise-cracking Private Eye is alive and well in the inventive mind of Robert Crais. Where Chandler's Marlowe led the way, and Parker's Spenser followed, Elvis Cole fully upholds the style and the standard. Where Spenser has Hawk, Susan and Pearl the dog. Cole has Pike, Lucy and a battle-scarred cat.In Indigo Slam they duck and dive among a rich supporting cast (some more believable than others) of federal marshals, Russian mobsters, Asian counterfeiters, assorted police and secret service personnel, plus a trio of children. Eight-year-old Charles, forever flipping the finger and f-ing 'm, will make you laugh, fifteen-year-old Teri will bring you close to tears.The plot is intricate but cleverly constructed to accelerate the page turning; the surprises are frequent. If for me there was one final twist too many, I still closed the book and immediately placed my order for the next. I need to know if Elvis and Lucy really have solved the problem of Lucy's nasty ex-husband.

I have just started the Pike and Cole series and find them fun, easy to read and enjoy the plot, setting and characters. They don't take a lot of effort to read and it feels like your reading a well made TV series.

This is not Crais's best offering... in fact it is the weakest plot in the series so far. But then we all have an off day I suppose. I'm reading them in sequence, so perhaps No 8 will be back to form? They are getting a little repetitive, though!

A worthwhile addition to the series without adding much. Cartoon Russian villains not my bag but Cole gets his girl and Pike stands on his head, so there are good moments. Clark Hewitt is a typical Crais character - compromised but redemptive - and a good one. If only Crais' view on world politics was as balanced as his best character's sisola

I love the characters - I try to save Cole and Pike as a treat as they are so enjoyable and I'm not looking forward to getting to the end of the series.