Robert Crais returned to the program to talk about his latest installment in a mystery series that features Elvis Cole, a private investigator who Crais likes to call "The World's Greatest Detective." In "The Wanted" Elvis is contacted by a woman who is worried about her son. The youth is still in high school, he doesn't have a job, and lately he's been sporting some very flashy and expensive apparel. She got suspicious and searched his room. That is when she became really upset and very concerned. How did her son obtain a Rolex watch that would retail for forty thousand dollars? Is her boy dealing drugs? What is going on?
She retains the services of Elvis Cole. He is tasked with snooping into her son's affairs to determine what this formerly innocent kid has been doing lately. Elvis finds out some troubling things. Meanwhile a couple of hired hit men are searching for Cole's client's son. They believe he has something that is very valuable and they will do anything to get the object back. These two men are leaving a trail of corpses in their wake when their quarry suddenly vanishes.
Elvis engages in a deadly race to locate his client's son before the bad guys can. Cole's sidekick, the lethal Joe Pike, shall be counted on to show up when Elvis needs him the most. Pike plays a secondary role in this novel but in recent books he has come more to the fore and his take no prisoners approach has won him many fans. In this interview I asked Bob Crais if it came down to a hypothetical battle between Lee Child's dominating fictional hero Jack Reacher and Joe Pike, who would come out on top? Listen to the interview to hear the amusing response the author gave me.
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