Stalking the Angel

An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel, Book 2

By: Robert Crais

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Meet Elvis Cole, L.A. private eye...he quotes Jiminy Cricket and carries a .38. He’s a literate, wise-cracking Vietnam vet who is determined never to grow up.

The blonde who walked into Cole’s office was the best looking woman he’d seen in weeks. The only thing that kept her from rating a perfect "10" was the briefcase on one arm and the uptight hotel magnate on the other. Bradley Warren had lost something very valuable - something that belonged to someone else: a rare thirteenth-century Japanese manuscript called the Hagakure.

Just about all Cole knew about Japanese culture he’d learned from reading Shogun, but he knew a lot about crooks - and what he didn’t know his sociopathic sidekick, Joe Pike, did. Together their search begins in L.A.’s Little Tokyo and the nest of notorious Japanese mafia, the yakuza, and leads to a white-knuckled adventure filled with madness, murder, sexual obsession, and a stunning double-whammy ending. For Elvis Cole, it’s just another day’s work.

Praise for Stalking the Angel

"Stalking the Angel is a righteous California book: intelligent, perceptive, hard, clean."--James Ellroy

"Out on the West Coast, where private eyes thrive like avocado trees, Robert Crais has created an interesting and amusing hero in Elvis Cole."--The Wall Street Journal

"Devotees of the rock ‘em, sock ‘em school should find [Stalking the Angel] tasty."--The San Diego Union

©2011 Robert Crais (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Stalking the Angel is a righteous California book: intelligent, perceptive, hard, clean."--James Elroy

"Elvis Cole provides more fun for the reader than any L.A. private eye to come along in years."--Joseph Wambaugh

Good Book

More depth into characters. Story was little weak but overall was a good book.

Vintage Cole & Pike

I love Elvis Cole & Joe Pike. This was the second book in the series and it seems a little dated now in 2020, since it was written in the late 1980's, but the story itself holds up well. Robert Crais is a good writer and I enjoyed the narrator.

Ugh

I love this series and this was a good story but the ending was not good.

2nd listening

I’ve read the physical book and have now listened to it twice. Robert Crais became one of my favorite leisure read authors instantly and I proceeded to consume everything he wrote that I could find. If you like movies from the 80s and tv shows like Miami Vice, you’ll love this book. Side note, Robert Crais helped write on Miami Vice. Lots of cool guy action against the Yakuza and quick wit throughout!

Enjoyed this as much as the first

Good characterization as always, plot twists that I liked. Narration was colorful and appropriate will get the next in series

Great character

The story was good, very good, but it is the characters I really enjoyed. Fully developed not by description but by deeds. I look forward to getting to know them.

Not Crais’ Normal Standard

I enjoy Robert Crais’ characters and storylines. This book didn’t rise to his normal excellent plots. It will be satisfying for Elvis Cole fans but is not a strong enough story to be a stand-alone example of his normal excellence.

Great book keep up the good work Robert.

Mr. Lawlor could do better voice parts. I have heard better. keep trying to do each voice per part.

Stands the test of time; awful narrator

I’ve read Crais from the beginning. I love the fact that he went quickly from a “first-novel” writer to become the top writer of this genre in a step-by-step fashion: the quality of his writing between the first and the eighth, L.A. Confidential, is remarkable. He has only gotten better since that time.

But this narrator, Lawlor, is so completely wrong for Crais’ books that the publisher should really order a redo with any of the fine narrators who have read his later novels. The pitch and tone of this reader are all wrong — the guy is as high-pitched as an Irish tenor. Bono could do better. Moreover, the reason that the dry humor, mental quips, and smarmy comments work so well in Cole’s character is because he’s basically a straight man with a quick, irreverent attitude. This guy makes Cole sound like a greased up William F Buckley.

As I’ve found consistently, to enjoy Crais’ writing, there’s no substitute for just reading his books. But certainly the later two narrators deserve 5 stars compared to this effort.

Hated the performance. The last one was so good.

Whoever directed this one needs to check the previous work for performance continuity. hated it.