American writer Robert Crais has a resumé that includes writing for iconic TV shows like Cagney and Lacey, Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice. Those accomplishments alone are pretty amazing, but it’s his crime series featuring Elvis Cole and Joe Pike that has attracted die-hard crime fiction lovers for decades. Both return in The Big Empty, which is the 20th book in this popular series. Their friendship is at the core of its longevity.
They are friends and partners in their detective agency. Each man brings something special into the partnership. Elvis is front facing and deals with the clients. His laid back demeanour usually puts people at ease. Elvis is not a fan of anyone in authority, so he will happily use wisecracks to annoy the person.As a former marine and cop, Joe has no fear and great tactical skills. He comes across as a man with hidden depths. Previous books in the series have shared his difficult childhood with an abusive father.
Both protagonists have risen above their early beginnings. When they get in tricky situations, each implicitly trusts that the other will help him out, come Hell or high water.
Tommy Beller disappeared when his daughter Traci was only 13 years old. He spent a day doing service calls for his heating and air conditioning company in Rancha, a rural community in LA County. He never returned home at the end of the day and appears to have vanished without a trace.
Traci has never understood how her loving father could abandon his family. Now 23, she is a social media star with millions of followers, an expanding chain of bakeries and all kinds of merch. Traci decides to use her financial resources to find out what happened to her dad. Elvis hesitates to take the job. After a decade, there is little chance of finding new leads and he doesn’t want to take advantage of Traci. However, he feels a void in his own life as he never knew his father, and shared feeling of loss leads him to accept the case.
Much to his surprise, Elvis does come up with a new line of inquiry. It’s a minor piece of information but things begin to heat up as he digs deeper. When he ends up being followed by various unknown individuals, he realises that he is on the right track and calls on Joe for assistance.
Joe and Elvis are kick-ass characters who will not walk away from a fight, especially if it’s a fight for an underdog. Crais has established this element of their personalities over the years. They have always been physically strong. For long-term readers, this requires an acceptance that Joe and Elvis don’t seem to be aging like Bosch or Rebus. The plots and other characters are very 2025, and you’ll likely accept the anomaly as the Cole and Pike books are such enjoyable reads.
There are multiple layers to The Big Empty, which help to build the suspense. The plot sensitively deals with difficult themes about loss, post traumatic stress and family. Crais will challenge your assumptions about various characters. As an author, he is comfortable conveying the many shades of grey.
Crais is also comfortable creating characters who are deliciously obnoxious. If you’ve read any of the other books in the series, you’ll recognise this description of John Chen, a criminalist with the LAPD’s Forensic Science Division. He is an annoying self-centered man but also entertaining in small doses.
John is part of an ongoing cast who weave in and out of story arcs in the series. This includes Lucy Chenier, and her son, Ben. Crais does a good blend of familiar characters along with new ones. An ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, are very memorable. The characters along with the engrossing plot will have you burning through the pages.
Reading The Big Empty, set in Los Angeles, as wildfires raged through the city this January was rather unsettling. Visions of Elvis Cole exercising on the deck of his A-frame house overlooking Laurel Canyon with flames in the distance come to mind. If you’re not already following Robert Crais on X, you may wish to check his profile as he sometimes share images of Elvis Cole’s Los Angeles. They can be a good supplement when you read The Big Empty.
Other authors writing crime fiction set in LA are Walter Mosley, Naomi Hirahara, Michael Connelly and Steph Cha.
Simon & Schuster UK
Print/Kindle/iBook
£11.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
