Crais packs ‘The Sentry’ with action
Cole and Pike are back!
Though “The Sentry” by Robert Crais deals primarily with Joe Pike and his attraction to a woman who nearly gets him killed, Elvis Cole enters the story at the halfway mark and covers Pike’s back to the end, which is what friends are for.
Let’s face it, it’s pretty difficult for Crais to write a novel today about either Cole or Pike without having the other in the story, too. Cole and Pike, or Pike and Cole, are a team, and that’s made clear in this new novel.
“The Sentry” starts out with Pike stopping at a gas station in the Venice area of Los Angeles County to put some air into the tires of his Jeep. While doing so, he spots two gangbangers walking down the sidewalk across the street, looking as though they’re searching for someone to rob. They are.
The two young guys duck into a sandwich shop and start roughing up the owner for money. Pike leaves his Jeep at the station and darts across the street. He enters the sandwich shop and swiftly dispatches one of the bangers, while the other one takes off. The problem is that the owner of the shop and his niece are hiding from the Bolivian drug cartel because of several million dollars they stole, and this draws attention to them big time.
Pike is smitten with the niece and offers to take care of any problems they might have with the local gangs. Unfortunately, the uncle and niece soon disappear, and that’s when Pike begins to find out about their past. The Bolivians have sent a professional killer to bring them back, and this guy is definitely missing a can from the six pack. The guy loves to torture his victims, and he’s not the least bit afraid of Joe Pike. He also talks to two voices he hears in his head and carries on conversations with them. Pike may have just met his match in this killer named Daniel, even with Cole covering his play.
Like all the novels in this tough, gritty PI series, “The Sentry” proves that Robert Crais is one of the top writers in his field and that few other authors can match his sheer talent for describing the Los Angeles area with edge-of-your-seat suspense and hard-hitting action. Ah, and lest I forget, there’s also the author’s famous brand of humor once Elvis Cole enters the picture. You just can’t help but love the character and his optimism regarding life. The way Cole views things brings out a laugh when you least expect it. Why a movie hasn’t been made from this series, I don’t know.
The two characters are deftly drawn by Crais and come alive in ways other authors can only dream about with their own writing. The stories are intricate in detail, sucking you in without you even realizing it. And, like Cole and Pike, you simply have to find out what’s going on before you reach the last page. This is certainly one of the best series on the market today, and if you’ve never sampled an Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novel, you owe it to yourself to do so. You won’t be disappointed.
Wayne C. Rogers is the author of the horror novellas “The Encounter” and “The Tunnels,” both of which can be purchased at Amazon’s Kindle Store for 99 cents each.
