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Robert Crais, known to lovers of suspense and crime novels for having written many New York Times bestsellers, including Suspect and Taken, has just completed The Promise, his twentieth novel and the latest in his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series.
He began his career by writing television scripts for shows such as Quincy, Miami Vice, and LA Law.
He credits Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck for influencing his writing style.
In The Promise, Elvis is hired to find a woman who's disappeared. He learns she's an explosives expert who worked for a Defense Department contractor. Meanwhile, LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his dog, Maggie, track a fugitive to a house filled with explosives...and, a dead body. As Elvis Cole embarks on a search for the missing woman, he learns the two cases intersect, and could very well bring an end to the lives of Joe Pike, Scott James, Maggie, and his own.
I get the feeling in The Promise that Elvis Cole is still evolving. Will you talk about that?
He is evolving because I am. My first published novel, The Monkey's Raincoat, came out in 1987. I'm not the same person now as I was then. One of the reasons I've stayed interested in Elvis and Joe--maybe the primary reason--is I expect them to evolve over time, as people do. That's why, to me, they've remained fresh. There's always something new and interesting impacting their characters--helping to define who they are as people.
You've created two iconic characters in Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Will you describe their relationship over the course of the series?
It's dependable. At its core, the series is about friendship and loyalty. It's about having someone you can trust regardless of the situation. Elvis and Joe grew out of my love for the Hollywood notion of the buddy-picture or the bromance. It goes back forever--with Pancho and the Cisco Kid, and much earlier.
There's a reason people respond to this situation: in the darkness, we want a person we can trust at our side. At our core, we're pack animals, like gorillas or wild dogs. We want to gather, have a family. Elvis and Joe are representations of family. They're partners; they're each that friend we all wish we had. I think that unfaltering friendship is worth writing about. I like to see it grow and evolve over time. I like to explore how they came to be as people and as friends. I think that's what I've done over the course of the series.
In The Promise, as in some of your other novels, you've augmented the private detective first person POV with a combination of first and third person narratives, along with multiple points of view. Will you talk about that?
I think it makes for a richer reading experience. To me, employing those writing techniques are the same as a painter using different colors. The backdrop of the novel is my canvas. I want the fullest possible experience for the reader, and a full writing experience for myself. I'm the artist who writes the stuff, but I'm also my own first reader.
I work my way through the characters and their evolution over the course of the year it takes to complete the novel. I want to be entertained and need to stay interested in what I'm doing. The more "colors" I use, the richer the canvas becomes. If I've done the dance correctly, by the time a reader finishes the book, the experience will have been deeper and fuller.
I was amazed by the pinpoint accuracy of your writing from the POV of Maggie, a German shepherd. It reminded me of Jack London's White Fang, only more detailed, but just as dramatic. Tell us about that.
It was very important to me to make Maggie as realistic as possible. I created Maggie and Scott James in Suspect out of respect for the human-canine bond. Anyone who's ever had and loved a dog knows what that's like: the sense of loyalty, devotion, and the relationship the two develop.
When I researched that relationship, I learned amazing things about dog perception, cognition, and why dogs do what they do. I wanted to depict Maggie as accurately as humanly possible--because I had to translate the ways of a dog so any human being would be able to 'get it.'
Once Suspect was published, I began hearing from people who were involved at various le
Clik here to view.
Photo: Exley Foto
Robert Crais, known to lovers of suspense and crime novels for having written many New York Times bestsellers, including Suspect and Taken, has just completed The Promise, his twentieth novel and the latest in his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series.
He began his career by writing television scripts for shows such as Quincy, Miami Vice, and LA Law.
He credits Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck for influencing his writing style.
In The Promise, Elvis is hired to find a woman who's disappeared. He learns she's an explosives expert who worked for a Defense Department contractor. Meanwhile, LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his dog, Maggie, track a fugitive to a house filled with explosives...and, a dead body. As Elvis Cole embarks on a search for the missing woman, he learns the two cases intersect, and could very well bring an end to the lives of Joe Pike, Scott James, Maggie, and his own.
I get the feeling in The Promise that Elvis Cole is still evolving. Will you talk about that?
He is evolving because I am. My first published novel, The Monkey's Raincoat, came out in 1987. I'm not the same person now as I was then. One of the reasons I've stayed interested in Elvis and Joe--maybe the primary reason--is I expect them to evolve over time, as people do. That's why, to me, they've remained fresh. There's always something new and interesting impacting their characters--helping to define who they are as people.
You've created two iconic characters in Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Will you describe their relationship over the course of the series?
It's dependable. At its core, the series is about friendship and loyalty. It's about having someone you can trust regardless of the situation. Elvis and Joe grew out of my love for the Hollywood notion of the buddy-picture or the bromance. It goes back forever--with Pancho and the Cisco Kid, and much earlier.
There's a reason people respond to this situation: in the darkness, we want a person we can trust at our side. At our core, we're pack animals, like gorillas or wild dogs. We want to gather, have a family. Elvis and Joe are representations of family. They're partners; they're each that friend we all wish we had. I think that unfaltering friendship is worth writing about. I like to see it grow and evolve over time. I like to explore how they came to be as people and as friends. I think that's what I've done over the course of the series.
In The Promise, as in some of your other novels, you've augmented the private detective first person POV with a combination of first and third person narratives, along with multiple points of view. Will you talk about that?
I think it makes for a richer reading experience. To me, employing those writing techniques are the same as a painter using different colors. The backdrop of the novel is my canvas. I want the fullest possible experience for the reader, and a full writing experience for myself. I'm the artist who writes the stuff, but I'm also my own first reader.
I work my way through the characters and their evolution over the course of the year it takes to complete the novel. I want to be entertained and need to stay interested in what I'm doing. The more "colors" I use, the richer the canvas becomes. If I've done the dance correctly, by the time a reader finishes the book, the experience will have been deeper and fuller.
I was amazed by the pinpoint accuracy of your writing from the POV of Maggie, a German shepherd. It reminded me of Jack London's White Fang, only more detailed, but just as dramatic. Tell us about that.
It was very important to me to make Maggie as realistic as possible. I created Maggie and Scott James in Suspect out of respect for the human-canine bond. Anyone who's ever had and loved a dog knows what that's like: the sense of loyalty, devotion, and the relationship the two develop.
When I researched that relationship, I learned amazing things about dog perception, cognition, and why dogs do what they do. I wanted to depict Maggie as accurately as humanly possible--because I had to translate the ways of a dog so any human being would be able to 'get it.'
Once Suspect was published, I began hearing from people who were involved at various le