Rating: 
Summary: Wow!
Review: This is easily the finest work ever by Robert Crais. He shows us just why Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are the best team in the mystery pages today. We find out why Joe is depised by the LAPD and Elvis finds out how easy it is for everything and everyone he cares about to slip away. Go get a copy of this book now!!
Rating:
Summary: Thank you Robert Crais
Review: With the last few books in the series I was beginning to think the old formula though still enjoyable was beginning to get a little threadbare.Then this comes along! Thank you Mr. Crais for not letting your fans down! Elvis and Pike are taken to the next level. I can't wait for the next one. Buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: No reader can ask for anything more.
Review: Oh, man, man, MAN.... what a book! I have just now read the final words. I closed the book slowly, running my hands all over it, before I held it tightly to my heart for a few moments. I do that after great reads. Robert Crais has given me (and the world) a truly great one. As I read LA Requiem, I laughed, I cried, I was fearful, I was shaken, I was envious, I cared, I loathed, I loved. Robert Crais has a gift for saying exactly the right words and phrases that evoke such emotions in his reader. I've read all of Crais' books with that knowledge. But, this one.... this one did it even more powerfully. By telling Joe's story, Crais has plumbed the depths of both Joe and Elvis... and also mine. No reader can ask for anything more. Now, I'm going to pick the book up again and read it once more.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST Elvis/Joe Pike book yet!
Review: Reading a Crais novel is like coming home to L.A. This is without a doubt the best novel Crais has written so far. If this book doesn't win the Edgar, there's no justice. Finally, the back story on Pike! I've waited years for this book and am re-reading it already (read it last night/this morning in one sitting). Thank you, Mr. Crais.
Rating: 
Summary: Publishers Weekly starred review
Review: In his eighth book about wise-cracking Los Angeles private detective Elvis Cole, Crais has expanded his narrative reach and broadened his characters' horizons to produce a mature work that deserves to move him up a notch or two--into Parker or Connelly country. He's done this by focusing on Joe Pike, Cole's tough and hitherto totally enigmatic partner. The book's scope is wide enough to include many other memorable characters, especially a rough-edged, vulnerable police officer named Samantha Dolan, plus a choice of plausible villians. Crais seems to have successfully stretched himself the way another Southern California writer--Ross Macdonald--always tried to do, to write a mystery novel with a solid literary base.
Rating:
Summary: Booklist starred, boxed review
Review: Karen Garcia is shot in the head while jogging in an L. A. preserve. It would have been written off as just another violent death, but her father, Frank, is the most powerful Hispanic politician in L. A. Frank Garcia's Hispanic background tells him not to trust the cops, so he asks Joe Pike, an ex-cop, to observe the investigation. Many on the force still believe Pike killed his partner 12 years earlier. Pike is also one of Karen Garcia's former lovers. Pike's partner, Elvis Cole, serves as our guide through an investigation sullied by politics, personal ambition, and a growing media spotlight. Cole finds his own life thrown into chaos when Pike becomes a suspect, the lead female detective on the case takes an interest in him, and it appears that the killer may be connected to the death of Pike's old partner. The eighth Elvis Cole-Joe Pike novel is easily the most ambitious in an outstanding series. Readers will learn what drives Pike, how he uses his taciturn demeanor as a shield, and why the toughest thing he ever did involved neither guns nor physical bravery. This is an extraordinary crime novel that should not be pigeonholed by genre. The best books always land outside preset boundaries. A wonderful experience.
Rating:
Summary: Crais is at the top of his game
Review: This is easily the most brilliant Elvis Cole novel to date. Delving deep behind the mask of Joe Pike, LA Requiem reveals things about Pike, Cole and their relationship to each other and the world of LA with the fine skills of a writer moving into his prime. Dark, astonishingly honest and powerful, Requiem is also more daring than his previous novels. Improbably, Crais has found a new depth that some readers may not fully understand or appreciate. But in the process of peeling back the layers of his two heroes' lives, Crais has painted an unbelievably real and raw portrait of Los Angeles that is unflinching, yet loving and, ultimately hopeful. This novel should finally and fittingly solidify Crais as one of America's finest mystery novelists. LA Requiem belongs right next to the great LA novels, standing out as a loving valentine to the crazy, brutal, wonderful and sometimes painfully beautiful City of Angels.
Rating: 
Summary: A Rare, Bleak Misstep for Robert Crais & Elvis Cole
Review: This is easily the bleakest Elvis Cole mystery to date. For some reason, Crais decided to substitute darkness for his usual levity, and subject the most likeable characters to various sorts of misery and suffering. Perhaps this is what someone might like to read if they want to feel depressed (or if they hate Elvis, Pike, and Lucy). But this is not what one reads Crais for! His other books are witty and fun, and do not beat up too much on the good guys. LA REQUIEM has plenty of pedophilia, child abuse, and many other bad things happening to good people. What it does not have is entertainment value, any sense of hope, or the humor we've come to expect from Crais. Pass this up, and try an earlier Crais.
Rating:
Summary: LA Requiem - the best Elvis Cole / Joe Pike ever!
Review: Having lived in Los Angeles for 13 years, it was a pleasure to discover Robert Crais' Elvis Cole. Mr. Crais has allowed the characters in his novels to evolve, allowing the reader to feel as if she has met a new friend and is getting better acquainted with him each time they visit. LA Requiem continues this tradition, bringing the reader closer to both Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, allowing glimpses into the histories of these men that have been hinted in previous books. What a delight to unravel some of the mysteries of these two characters, and to remain involved and engaged in our relationship with them as well as their relationship with one another. The writing is crisp, the story is complex and well thought out. I tried to make this book last, but one long plane ride from LA to DC was all I could manage. Thank you, Mr. Crais. Keep them coming!
Rating:
Summary: The finest novel Robert Crais has written.
Review: I have enjoyed each of Robert Crais' Elvis Cole novels and have always looked forward with great anticipation to the next, often agonizing over those times when Mr. Crais takes two years between books. I had listened to an interview with Mr. Crais where he confided how excited he was about his new novel (untitlted at the time) but now to be published as "L. A. Requiem", which would detail a great detail about Joe Pike's background. I was able to get hold of an advance copy of the book and, without resorting to the hyperbole that is so common regarding author's whose works have been critically acclaimed I can say that this is not just the best book Mr. Crais has written but the best novel I have read in a long time. In a time when too many novelists with a successful and selling series character are content to stand pat with their characters and merely go through the motions of cranking out another story, Mr. Crais has challenged both himself as a writer, and also the characters he has created, plumbing emotions and feelings in a unique, descriptive style, similar to the prior novels, yet more poetic, with his confidence in his writing apparent in every line. In this novel, at least in my mind, he refreshes the "private eye" style, reinventing and embellishing the characters of Elvis, Joe, and Lucy, while adding to the foundation of the series, moving it forward, but, like real life, with a question as to what the future will hold. This is the type of novel that you will want to put down, only because you don't want it to end, particularly if we have to wait two years for the next one. If you read these reviews, Mr. Crais, bravo to your courage in letting your characters grow and change and engage us as readers as well as providing a complicated and thoughtful plot.
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