The Watchman (Joe Pike Series #1) » (Reprint)

Following a tremendously successful run as a television screenwriter, Robert Crais broke into the publishing world in a big way with his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike mystery novels, proving that for a select few, Los Angeles truly can be a city of dreams.

Larkin Conner Barkley lives like the City of Angels is hers for the taking. Young and staggeringly rich, she speeds through the city during its loneliest hours, blowing through red after red in her Aston Martin as if running for her life. Until out of nowhere a car appears, and with it the metal-on-metal explosion of a terrible accident. Dazed, Larkin attempts to help the other victims. And finds herself the sole witness in a secret federal investigation.

For maybe the first time in her life, Larkin wants to do the right thing. But by agreeing to cooperate with the authorities, she becomes the target for a relentless team of killers. And when the U.S. Marshals and the finest security money can buy can’t protect her, Larkin’s wealthy family turns to the one man money can’t buy - Joe Pike.

Pike lives a world away from the palaces of Beverly Hills. He’s an ex-cop, ex-Marine, ex-mercenary who owes a bad man a favor, and that favor is to keep Larkin alive. The one upside of the job is reuniting with Bud Flynn, Pike’s LAPD training officer, and a man Pike reveres as a father. The downside is Larkin Barkley, who is the uncontrollable cover girl for self-destruction - and as deeply alone as Pike.

Pike commits himself to protecting the girl, but when they immediately come under fire, he realizes someone is selling them out. In defiance of Bud and the authorities, Pike drops off the grid with the girl and follows his own rules of survival: strike fast, hit hard, hunt down the hunters. With the help of private investigator Elvis Cole, Pike uncovers a web of lies and betrayals, and the stunning revelation that even the cops are not who they seem. As the body count rises, Pike’s biggest threat might come from the girl herself, a lost soul in the City of Angels, determined to destroy herself unless Joe Pike can teach her the value of life…and love.

The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio

Foreign terrorists may lend an exotic touch to American crime fiction, but our preferred villains are still real estate developers and agents of the federal government. Not one to play favorites, Robert Crais tosses them all in the mix in The Watchman, a testosterone-fueled thriller expressly engineered for Joe Pike, the enigmatic sidekick of Crais's so-cool Los Angeles private eye, Elvis Cole. Pike is the kind of solitary, scary guy who can do push-ups on his thumbs and attract a pack of coyotes when he goes out for a predawn run, and Crais writes in a taut, muscular style tailored to the lethal moves of this romantic mercenary soldier.