Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre effort
Review: I've really enjoyed Crais' Elvis Cole series -- especially LA Requiem -- but Indigo Slam was a disappointing, even boring read. The book starts well enough with an intriguing story about three kids abandoned by their father. Crais ruins the book by solving the mystery quickly in the first half of the book. That leaves about a hundred pages for utterly unbelievable shootouts and a farcically complicated end-game designed by Elvis. Are we supposed to find the notion of multiple shoot-outs believable? Is Elvis immortal? Can he in fact be killed? You could skip the final part of the book -- I skimmed it.
Rating: 
Summary: Average Crais
Review: In terms of Crais's Elvis Cole novels, this is about as middle of the road as it gets. While not a superb novel, there is really nothing wrong with it. Sometimes drags a bit, sometimes exciting, it's a good book nonetheless.
Basically, a young girl enters Elvis's office and asks him to find her father. What happens is a typical hairy situation with a lot of twists and turns. Though it is quite unrealistic at the end, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to continue reading about Elvis and his partner, Joe Pike.
Rating: 
Summary: Can anyone stop Robert Crais?
Review: Indigo Slam is another great Elvis Cole mystery. From the witness protection program, to the Russian mob, to countefeiting, to child neglect. Robert Crais throws all this into his newest Cole novel and more. I thought it was the best of the series so far. With a great plot and characters that are so lifelike, you will have trouble putting this one down. With plenty of action, the author never loses track of where he is going or how he gets there. In these times when most people think a good mystery involes yet another boring serial killer, Robert Crais and Elvis Cole, shows us what a true crime novel is all about. I highly recomend this book to all of you. GOOD READING
Rating: 
Summary: a good read
Review: It was my first experience of Elvis Cole. The story is fast moving and credible, the characters believable. I'm looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with Elvis.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing is What it Seems in this Super Thriller
Review: It was plant day in Los Angeles, at least that what Private Investigator Elvis Cole calls the day of the month that he waters his dying plants. Elvis isn't good with plants. Anyway he's busy caring for them when Teresa, Charles and Winona Haines walk into his office. They want Elvis to find their father. Elvis doesn't work for children, so he sends them away. However, after they leave he realizes that he's screwed up. The kids were obviously in trouble, had come to him for help and he'd failed them. He rushes downstairs in time to see fifteen-year-old Teresa pull away from the curb. He dashes to his car and follows, thinking that the girl, who is too young to drive, has a lot on her young shoulders.He decides to help the children and Teresa pulls a wad of hundred dollar bills from her purse, but he tells her he won't take money from her, she insists and he accepts two of the bills and leaves, thinking it'll be an easy job. But as usual in a Robert Crais detective thriller, things are not always as they seem. Elvis goes to the print shop where Charles Haines, the errant father, works and finds out he was fired because the boss caught him shooting up. The kid's father is a junky and that's the last thing Elvis wants to tell them. From the phone bill he learns Charles called Seattle several times, so he flies up there on his own nickle, asks questions and is kidnapped, beat up and almost killed by Russian mobsters who want to know why Elvis is asking question about Charles, who's last name by the way isn't Haines, but Hewitt. Fortunately he's saved at the last minute by U.S. Marshals who want to know the same thing. Elvis figures out that Charles had flown the coup from the federal witness program. That he was a big time counterfeiter and that some very bad guys want him dead and that they'll kill anybody who gets in their way. Fortunately, Elvis has his pal, the quiet and broody Pike to watch his back. And thus it begins, the twists and turns of a Robert Crais novel where, as I said above, nothing is as it seems. Just when you think you've got a handle on the story it takes a quick right turn and you're slapping yourself upside the head, murmuring, "Why didn't I see that?" INDIGO SLAM, like every book Robert Crais has written, is a five star read, one that won't let you sleep, eat or go to work until you finish, it's that good. Reviewed by Vesta Irene
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: One of the better Elvis Cole mysteries. Endangered children, the only thing better than a damsel in distress for Cole and his faithful sidekick Joe Pike. Fast paced!! Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Modern PI at its best.
Review: Robert Crais breathes new life into the wisecracking PI genre with his Elvis Cole series. What at first looks like a Spenser clone, becomes fresh and satisfying with Crais' guidance. Cole and his partner Joe Pike find themselves as nursemaids to 3 kids whose father has flown from the care of the witness protection program. What looks to be a case of finding a deadbeat drugged out lowlife takes a turn when the father turns out to be a bit different than Cole's image of him. The fight to save the family brings Cole into conflict with Vietmnamese expatriates, the Russian mob, the Witness Protection Program and the US Treasury. It leads to an exciting chase at Disneyland which guarantees that this book will never be made into a Disney film and a stunning conclusion which puts the family in extreme jeopardy. Write on, Mr Crais, write on.
Rating:
Summary: I have read them all
Review: Robert Crais has never written a bad book.
HIS Crais') BEST is HOSTAGE but I have enjoyed Elvis Costello and his sometimes partner Joe Pike.
I am anxously awaiting The Forgotten due soon
Rating:
Summary: Just good
Review: The story of the counterfeiter is interesting but you can't say this is a real RC's thriller, the book will keep you reading but it has some voids and some parts that just couldn't be as easy as is written in the book (the way the mob accepted everything that Cole said), but this doesn't mean that is a boring story. Albeit is a good reading is not the best of this californian detective, may be is a good beach read, or in a long flight when you can read a while and rest a while.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping
Review: This Elvis Cole/Joe Pike story is more gripping than most others, and one recommended.
The story has an interesting beginning when a teen-age girl,
taking care of her two younger siblings, comes into Cole's office and tries to hire him to find her missing father. This
improbable request is initially denied, but Cole's soft heart
leads him into a mystery that grows by the day.
The father turns out to be truly missing, and the trail leads
to a Seattle counterfeiting operation for the Russian mob,
and before Cole knows what is going on, he is arrested by the
feds and knocked around by a team of US Marshals.
And that is just the beginning.
The action leads from Seattle back to the large L.A. area, and
the search generates more threats and banging-around, and Cole,
and then his partner, Pike, end up taking shots from Orientals
as well as Russians, while dodging both the Secret Service and
the US Marshals, and the complex conflicts taxes even these
best of private detectives.
And the kids of the missing man keep getting in the way as
well, and there is considerable interesting reading here,
and this book is recommended.
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