Robert Crais latest: The Promise

L. A. based private detectives Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are back at it. Elvis finds himself in the middle of tangled web involving an bomb hunting dog named Maggie, her handler, the L. A. PD, Home-Land Security and 400 pounds of plastic explosives cooked up without taggents. In the Elvis Cole series, it can be tricky to separate the good guys from the bad guys and in the end, Cole has to apply serious pressure to get the good guys to act like good guys. As always with Crais, the characters are well drawn and the story is a page turner.

-Dave