A Dangerous Man

In MWA Grand Master Crais’s outstanding 18th Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novel (after 2017’s The Wanted), Elvis, a private detective, and Joe, a very private paramilitary contractor, try to determine why young Los Angeles bank teller Isabel Roland was seized by kidnappers after she left the bank on a lunch break. Only Joe’s fortuitous intervention saved her at the time—but another kidnapping attempt succeeds. But who wants Isabel and why? Now Joe and Elvis have to locate Isabel and rescue her from a coterie of extremely proficient hired guns. Crais begins the story with deceptive simplicity but slowly ratchets up both the tension and the action with surgical precision. The scenes in which Joe saves Isabel from her captors and the final shoot-out among a colorful array of hit men, police, and U.S. Marshals stand as high-water marks among Crais’s illustrious crime oeuvre. So, who is the dangerous man to which the book’s title refers? Who but the stoic Joe Pike, demonstrating yet again why the particular kind of danger he carries is just plain off the charts. This one’s sure to hit the bestseller charts. Author tour. Agent: Aaron Priest, Aaron M. Priest Literary. (Aug.)