L.A. Requiem
- ISBN13: 9780345434470
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The day starts like any other in L.A. The sun burns hot as the Santa Ana winds blow ash from mountain fires to coat the glittering city. But for private investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, is dead, brutally murdered with a gun shot to the head.
Now Karen’s powerful father calls on Pike (a former cop) and his partner, Elvis Cole, to keep an eye on the LAPD as they search for his daughter’s killer–because i… More >>
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Beverly Bell said :
February 28, 2010 at 5:27 am
I am beginning to think only those who love a book write a review. Others immediately dismiss it and go on to better reading. L.A. Requiem is my second attempt at Robert Crais. The first was Forgotten Man. This book was flat, characters were jumbled but I made my way through it. This highly touted L.A. Requiem just had to be better, but it isn’t. The writing is poor. Elmore Leonard says to writers; don’t write what they don’t read. In Crais books I was skimming and scanning more than ever. At the rate I was skipping I could have finished it in nothing flat. Joe Pike, okay so he had a poor upbringing, he is just a rude man. Elvis Cole, oh who cares.
Rating: 1 / 5
Anonymous said :
February 28, 2010 at 7:20 am
I guess the really dumb people won’t be wasting their time by reading this book. For the rest of you though, beware, it may turn you off to reading. I was shocked at how good the reviews were for this stale, poorly written, adolescent, insipid waste of paper. It was the first time I’ve read Crais, and will certainly be the last. In the acknowledgements he thanks “George Lucas”. Could it be the same mental giant that gave us “Star Wars, the Phantom Menace”? Well, the two are operating on about the same negative level of intellectual rigor. For crime buffs, there are so many great alternatives: try Ellroy, Michael Stone, Loren D. Estlemen… The only good thing to say about this piece was that it read fast, thank god.
Rating: 1 / 5
Anonymous said :
February 28, 2010 at 8:58 am
The characters are paper thin. The relationships, immature — if not laughable. The plotting leaves the reader in the world of “oh wells,” or even worse, “so whats.” The tough detective has a habit of saying “Gee.” Worse still, Robert Crais’s command of the genre is so weak, he housed his detective in the same dwelling as the greatest detective in fiction right now: Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch. This is the kind of book that makes a reader angry. I noticed on the book’s jacket that Crais wrote for TV. This book reads like TV.
Rating: 1 / 5
Rebecca Brown said :
February 28, 2010 at 11:35 am
I had never read Crais before so his characters & plots were new to me although the location had the shadows of a Jonathan Kellerman. It also read a lot like an old-fashioned Chandler. I enjoyed the slight exaggeration of the characters, their motives, emotions & lives. Found some gaping holes as it seemed very unrealistic that cops from one jurisdiction could freely operate in every other jurisdiction with little or no interaction. When I’d finished, was I satisfied? For the most part yes! See my full review at [my website].active feature of this book is to guess who has committed all the crimes and the author ingeniously drop some elements to make you think. The big surprise, the culprit. The ending, although a little sloppy does not disappoint and stays in line with the whole story
Rating: 3 / 5
Judith Lindenau said :
February 28, 2010 at 12:39 pm
L.A. Requiem has about every formula of detecting and police procedure in the last 30 years–all in one book! I mean, I don’t even want to name them, they are so familiar and boring: and this string of carbon copies don’t have any redeeming features, either. These Pattern People are pasted into a predictable plot line and mounted in a collage of scenes from the Los Angeles we all know and love–windy roads, bad traffic, smog, slimy characters, and corrupt cops.
Guess the only reason I gave the book three stars is that I like the flashbacks…that technique relieves the screaming boredom to a small extent.
Read the earlier books of Robert Crais. Skip this one.
Rating: 3 / 5