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Title: The Forgotten Man (Elvis Cole Novels)
ISBN: 0345451910
Author:
Robert Crais
Publicate Date: 2006-01-31
Publish: 2006-01-31
List Price: $7.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.02
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.40
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Barely OK
Not a great Cole novel. The book introduces a offshoot of the main theme early on but because it isn't clearly explained at that point I had no idea of exactly what the author's point was. It dragged along and none of the characters caught my interest. A poor lovestruck LAPD detective with a junior high crush on Elvis is just pitiful. I put this book down several months ago then read several other books then a Christmas present book and finally got around to finishing this baby. I think that says the book is no page turner. I've been reading Elvis Cole stories for a long time and this is way below average.
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2: Some of the old Crais, but too much of the new - disappointing
Elvis Cole has come to mean a wise cracking, smart aleck, with the exciting drama thrown in on the side. But Crais has taken the series and begun to allow it to deteriorate with formulaic plotlines, no complexity and has skipped the long-term character development that anchored the series. No longer does the reader laugh out loud and look forward to the next antic. This is a new and more serious Elvis - of course he is still portrayed as pining away for Lucy, and rightly so - and that would be okay if the storyline wasn't so trivial and contrived.
Elvis is immersed in the murder of a man that on his dying breath explained that he wanted to see his son, Elvis Cole. This puts Elvis into a series of flashbacks where the reader does learn a little more about the younger Elvis. Again, this could have been rewarding for the reader, but instead it is written with cardboard characterizations and a sketchy plotline. Carol Starkey is again introduced and there are attempts to integrate her character, but all attempts are clunky and don't measure up to anything real.
I just couldn't get into this one and I've read all of Crais' books and loved most of them. But the World's Greatest Detective is in desperate need of a storyline overall. Old readers of this series will want to keep up with the Elvis Cole story, but new readers should never start with this one. I am very sorry that I cannot recommend this book.
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3: Fun, suspenseful, and engaging!
This was my first Robert Crais book and I can understand why he has such a following.
This book grabs you from the start. The protagonist, Elvis, is slowly revealed through wonderful flashbacks as he tries to discover the identity of a murder victim who claimed, with his dying breath, that Elvis was his son. Since Elvis never knew his father, this is possible and the situation builds reader curiosity.
The dialogue throughout is great. It is real and tangible. Crais knows how to set up a scene. Reading the book is like watching a movie in your mind!
Each chapter brings the reader a bit closer to the identity of the murder victim. Even as the murder man's identity is revealed, the plot moves to finding the murderer and the motive. A fascinating ride of a book.
Jump on, you'll be pleased you did. Crais is every bit as good as Lee Child and Elvis might even be a bit more believable than Jack Reacher.
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4: Enjoyable, But Not one of Crais's Best
I'm currently reading Robert Crais's "Elvis Cole" books in order, and have very much enjoyed the series as a whole. THE FORGOTTEN MAN is the tenth entry in the series, and deals with a murdered man who may or may not be Cole's long-lost father. It's an enjoyable story, but not one of Crais's best efforts.
Crais is trying to juggle a lot of different subplots in THE FORGOTTEN MAN, and I think his plotting loses some of its sharpness here. In particular, I could have done without the silly romantic subplot between Cole and Carol Starkey, who harbors a romantic obsession with Cole for no discernable reason. Crais has never been good at writing romance, and all the love triangle stuff in this book is largely unconvincing.
The murder plot was decently written, but was a bit too convoluted to hold my interest. Crais constantly changes points of view in this novel, which disrupts the story's momentum. The novel's final twist is quite a surprise, but isn't the least bit believable. Further, fans of Joe Pike will be disappointed by his small role in THE FORGOTTEN MAN, which is little more than a cameo.
Overall, this is just an okay effort by Crais, although it is far better written than your average detective novel. My only major advice is to read LA REQUIEM and THE LAST DETECTIVE before reading this one, since it continues plotlines that were started in those earlier novels.
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5: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "ELVIS COLE FANS LEARN A LOT ABOUT ELVIS'S MYSTERIOUS YOUTH!"
"THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS WITH MURDER. IT WOULD HAUNT THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED HERE AND THE COPS WHO INVESTIGATED THE CASE AND THE FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF THE VICTIMS AND THE LITTLE GIRL MOST OF ALL. THE MURDER WOULD CHANGE HER. SHE WOULD BECOME SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHO SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN. SHE WOULD GROW INTO SOMEONE ELSE."
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Whether you're an existing Robert Crais fan, or if this is your first book in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series, you're in for a literary treat. As a great fan of Crais, I am always amazed how he so seamlessly mixes action and humor, with what actually amounts to silky emotional prose, in the middle of bullets, fists, and wit, and it almost seems effortless.
The story starts off with a flashback to the scene of a brutal and massively bloody crime scene. A Mother, Father, and son are found beaten brutally to death. In the midst of this bloody carnage are petite little foot prints through the pools of blood that led into a dark bedroom where the policeman found a little girl that could not have been more than four-years-old sucking her index finger. From that haunting scene we are transported to present day Los Angeles, where the "WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE" Elvis Cole gets a call from a Los Angeles homicide detective, telling Elvis that they found an old man in an alley dying of a gunshot wound holding old newspaper clippings of Elvis's prior heroics. His last words stated that he was Cole's long-lost Father, whose unknown identity has plagued Elvis throughout his entire life.
This leads to a multi-faceted story that includes Elvis being considered a murder suspect. So along with Cole trying to clear his own name, he is also trying to solve the biggest mystery of his entire life that he has even kept hidden from his closest friend Joe Pike... and that is... who is his Father? This gripping tale includes fake names and relationships, escort services, sexual blackmail, favors being called in from old friends and acquaintances, and a number of bittersweet poignant flashbacks to Elvis's youth, where he ran away from home on more than a handful of occasions in search for his elusive, unknown Father. A good example of the author's prose comes during one of the flashbacks when young Elvis is in a car with a detective that was hired by Elvis's Grandfather to find and retrieve him from another of his runaway attempts to find his nameless Father: "DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR MOM GOES WHEN SHE DISAPPEARS? THE HARDNESS DROPPED FROM THE BOY'S FACE LIKE FOG HIDING FROM THE SUN. HE STARED AT WILSON WITH WIDE, EXPECTANT EYES."
As an experienced Crais reader I find myself looking forward to his velvety use of words, which at times is like pulling silk over polished steel, with as much anticipation as I do his action sequences. Another example: "THE SALTON SEA WAS THE LARGEST, LOWEST LAKE IN CALIFORNIA, FILLING THE BROAD, FLAT BASIN OF THE SALTON SINK LIKE A MIRROR LAID ON THE DESERT FLOOR. IT WAS SHALLOW BECAUSE THE LAND WAS FLAT, AND SURROUNDED BY BARREN DESERT AND SCORCHED ROCKS LIKE SOME FORGOTTEN PUDDLE IN HELL." And of course his short-biting parenthetical humor, such as when he meets a woman that talked too much: "JANICE TALKED SO MUCH IT WAS LIKE DROWNING IN A VERBAL NIAGARA FALLS."
Robert Crais is at the top of his game and has created an Elvis Cole/Joe Pike genre that his fans can't get enough of. I recommend this book highly.
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