Robert Crais Books in Order (Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, Scott James and Maggie)

All of Robert Crais Books in Order!

Who is Robert Crais?

Robert Crais is a best-selling American crime novelist who began his career writing scripts for television shows-he is credited on episodes of Quincy M.E., Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice, and The Equalizer.

Since the mid-1990s, he is a full-time author mostly known for his award-winning series about Hollywood private eyes Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Also, the 2005 film Hostage with Bruce Willis was an adaptation of one of his books.

How to read Robert Crais’s books in order?

The Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Series

Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike formed a pair of Hollywood unorthodox private eyes who focuses mainly on cases with abused and battered women and children – with some exceptions. Elvis is the tough and conscientious type, and Joe is the strong and silent partner.

For more information about the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series, go to the dedicated reading order.

1. The Monkey’s Raincoat (1987)
2. Stalking the Angel (1989)
3. Lullaby Town (1992)
4. Free Fall (1993)
5. Voodoo River (1995)
6. Sunset Express (1996)
7. Indigo Slam (1997)
8. L.A. Requiem (1999)
9. The Last Detective (2003)
10. The Forgotten Man (2005)
11. The Watchman (2007)
12. Chasing Darkness (2008)
13. The First Rule (2010)
14. The Sentry (2011)
15. Taken (2012)
16. The Promise (2015) – Crossover with the Scott James and Maggie series.
17. The Wanted (2017)
18. A Dangerous Man (2019)
19. Racing the Light (2022)

Bonus: Elvis Cole and Joe Pike: A Mysterious Profile (2022)

The Scott James and Maggie Series

1. Suspect (2013) – LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well. Eight months ago, a shocking late-night assault by unidentified men killed his partner Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode. He is unfit for duty – until he meets his new partner. Maggie is not doing so well, either. A German shepherd who survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing out explosives before losing her handler to an IED. They are each other’s last chance. Shunned and shunted to the side, they set out to investigate the one case that no one wants them to touch: the identity of the men who murdered Stephanie.
2. The Promise (2015) – Crossover with the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series. Elvis Cole is hired to find a woman who’s disappeared, a seemingly ordinary case, until he learns the missing woman is an explosives expert and worked for a Defense Department contractor. Meanwhile, LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his patrol dog, Maggie, track a fugitive to a house filled with explosives-and a dead body. As the two cases intertwine, they all find themselves up against shadowy arms dealers and corrupt officials, and the very woman they promised to save may be the cause of their own deaths.

Other Novels by Robert Crais

• Demolition Angel (2000) – Carol Starkey is struggling to pick up the pieces of her former life as L.A.’s finest bomb squad technician. Fueled with liberal doses of alcohol and Tagamet, she’s doing time as a Detective-2 with LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section. Three years have passed since the event that still haunts her: a detonation that killed her partner and lover, scarred her body and soul, and ended her career as a bomb tech. When a seemingly innocuous bomb call explodes into a charred murder scene, Carol catches the case and embarks on an investigation of a series of explosions that reveal chilling intentions.
• Hostage (2001) – Jeff Talley was a good husband, a fine father, and a frontline negotiator with LAPD’s SWAT unit. But the high-stress, unforgiving job took an irreparable toll on his psyche. After a despondent father murders his wife and son and takes his own life, Talley hits bottom. His marriage ends, he resigns from SWAT, and he struggles to escape from his former life by taking the chief-of-police job in a sleepy, affluent bedroom community far from the chaos and crime of Los Angeles. But Talley’s pursuit of peaceful small-town life is about to change when three young men, fleeing the robbery of a mini-mart, invade a tightly secured home, and take the family hostage.
• The Two-Minute Rule (2006) – Every seasoned criminal knows the two-minute rule: the two minutes before the cops show up at the scene of a robbery. Keeping the rule means changing your life, breaking it means a lifetime in jail. But not everyone plays by the rules… When a decisive four minutes put Max Holman in prison, he spent the next decade planning one thing: reconciliation with his estranged son. Determined to put the past behind him, Max sets out on the morning of his parole only to discover his son, a cop, was gunned down in cold blood hours earlier. When the hit is exposed as a revenge killing, Max is determined to track down the murderer-at any cost.

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