I was a late starter reading Robert Crais. He has been writing books since 1987. Before that he wrote for T.V. shows like Hill Street Blues. A little back story: Elvis Cole is a private investigator. His partner's name is Joe Pike. The first book I read by R.C. was The Forgotten Man about 4 years ago. I actually listened to it on audio; I kept pushing the cassettes "remember those" into the car stereo and would drive to my destination slower and slower just to listen to more. After that book, which was very good, I started looking at R.C.'s back list. And the book that all of the critics said was his best was L.A. Requiem. Well I picked it up at a used book store and read it cover to cover in 3 days, which is fast for me. It quickly became one of my top 5 books of all time. OK back to Chasing Darkness. L.A. police find a corpse in a house, during fire season, trying to evacuate houses. The corpse is holding a photo album of murdered young women. From that point Elvis gets involved and there are so many twists and turns that you won't know who the real killer is until the last 20 pages. Crais is a great writer, his dialogue is some of my favorite, his books are relatively short, which I like. Elmore Leonard said once "leave out the parts that readers skip". Well Crais does, but that by no means takes away from his powerful prose. This is a good read and I enjoyed it, not his best, but very good. And the ending is very well done. There is also a scene where Cole visits a dead girl's family that will crack your heart.
Final Thought-Very good book-I love the Elvis Cole series.
Ruling: 8 out of 10
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