The Promise by Robert Crais

The theme for our February Mystery Book Club was mysteries with service dogs.

We had read Suspect by Robert Crais which was the first Scott James and Maggie book. Scott and  Maggie are in the K-9 unit and Maggie is Scott's partner. I liked it so much I wanted to read another Scott and Maggie book.

The Promise is the  Elvis Cole #16, Joe Pike #5 and Scott James and Maggie #2, all rolled into one.



I almost had a heart attack reading it, especially the end. Well not really but you know what I mean.

Here's what it's about:

"Loyalty, commitment, and the fight for justice have always driven Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. If they make a promise, they keep it. Even if it could get them killed.

When Elvis Cole is secretly hired to find a grief-stricken mother, he’s led to an ordinary house on a rainy night in Echo Park. Only the house isn’t ordinary, and the people hiding inside are a desperate fugitive and a murderous criminal with his own dangerous secrets.

As helicopters swirl overhead, Scott and Maggie track the fugitive to this same house, coming face-to-face with Mr. Rollins, a killer who leaves behind a brutally murdered body and enough explosives to destroy the neighborhood. Scott is now the only person who can identify him, but Mr. Rollins has a rule: Never leave a witness alive.

For all of them, the night is only beginning.

Sworn to secrecy by his client, Elvis finds himself targeted by the police even as Mr. Rollins targets Maggie and Scott. As Mr. Rollins closes in for the kill, Elvis and Joe join forces with Scott and Maggie to follow a trail of lies where no one is who they claim — and the very woman they promised to save might get them all killed."

Amy Breslyn's son was working in Afghanistan and was killed by a suicide bomber. She is a chemical production engineer. She wants to find out who was responsible. This average, middle aged, super smart woman is no one anyone would look at twice at or think twice about. She is trying to make deals with people who would know who is responsible and supply them with material to make bombs. Are the people she is dealing with who they say they are? 

Meryl Lawrence hires Elvis Cole to find Amy. Amy works for Meryl. Meryl says Amy stole a lot of money and disappeared. She doesn't want the police involved.

There is also Joe Pike, Elvis Coles' partner, with cameos of his cat. (Can't go wrong with a cat in the book.) Joe brings Jon Stone into the search. Jon was in the Army for 13 years, with 6 of those with Delta. He is now doing contract work for the government against terrorism. He is described as a "professional warrior."

This book is super suspenseful. It is the kind of book I was trying to read faster than I can read. Does that make sense? If words were objects in a room, I would have been tripping over them. The characters are complex. There are a lot of other characters and I found myself getting mixed up with some of the ancillary characters. Of course several of them were using other names. And I was reading too fast. No one trusts anyone. Everyone is after everyone else. 

*Robert Crais is an American author of detective fiction. Crais began his career writing scripts for television shows such as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law. His writing is influenced by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker and John Steinbeck. Crais has won numerous awards for his crime novels. Lee Child has cited him in interviews as one of his favourite American crime writers. The novels of Robert Crais have been published in 62 countries and are bestsellers around the world. Robert Crais received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award in 2006 and was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 2014.