Robert Crais - The Elvis Cole Series

The Monkey's Raincoat, Stalking the Angel, Lullaby Town

By: Robert Crais

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor, Mel Foster

Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

THE MONKEY'S RAINCOAT (read by Patrick Lawlor)

When Ellen Lang's husband disappears with their son, she hires Elvis Cole to track him down. A quiet and seemingly submissive wife, Ellen can't even write a check without him. All she wants is to get him and her son back - no questions asked. The search for Ellen's errant husband leads Elvis into the seamier side of Hollywood. He soon learns that Mort Lang is a down-on-his-luck talent agent who associates with a schlocky movie producer, and the last place he was spotted was at a party thrown by a famous and very well-connected ex-Matador. But no one has seen him since - including his B-movie girlfriend. At the same time the police find Mort in his parked car with four gunshots in his chest - and no kid in sight - Ellen disappears. Now nothing is what it seems, and the heat is on. It's up to Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, to find the connection between sleazy Hollywood players and an ex-Matador.

STALKING THE ANGEL (read by Patrick Lawlor)

Hired by a hotel magnate to locate a priceless Japanese manuscript, L.A. private eye Elvis Cole encounters the notorious Yakuza, the Japanese mob, and is drawn into a game of sexual obsession, amorality, and evil.

LULLABY TOWN (read by Mel Foster)

Hollywood's newest wunderkind is Peter Alan Nelson, the brilliant, erratic director known as the King of Adventure. His films make billions, but his manners make enemies. What the boy king wants, he gets, and what Nelson wants is for Elvis Cole to comb the country for the airhead wife and infant child the film-school flunkout dumped en route to becoming the third biggest filmmaker in America. It's the kind of case Cole can handle in his sleep - until it turns out to be a nightmare. For when Cole finds Nelson's wife in a small Connecticut town, she's nothing like what he expects. The lady has some unwanted - and very nasty - mob connections, which means Elvis could be opening the East Coast branch of his P.I. office...at the bottom of the Hudson River.

©1987, 1989, 1992 Robert Crais (P)2007, 2008 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Three for the price of one/great value

I stumbled into the this series by Caris a couple of months ago.

I started with the triple series based on Joe Pike and really enjoyed the story lines and figured I'd start at the beginning of the series.

Glad I didn't start here, it would have turned me off the series and the author. Needless to say he has fine tuned both his writing style and character development over the years and now falls in line with my other favs, Burke, Connelly and Baldacci.

Glad I invested the credit to have the back story on Elvis and Joe but this set of stories lacked the umph the later books offer, the stories..... I had to push myself to get thru all three.

Addictive, loved this series!

It's like discovering a new masterpiece! Can't wait to continue the adventures of Robert Karis.

I liked it

I liked this quite a bit. All the narrators did a good job but I like it better when there is the same narrator all the way through the series. Other than that I'll keep going through the series.

Interesting and well written

I always enjoy Robert Crais. His stories make great listening. I love Elvis Coles character.

Robert Crais- Elvis Cole series

These books are great! Excellent storyline! Makes my long commute enjoyable. Just downloaded another one.

Nice to read

If you enjoy no cellphone,no super tech this is a fun bundle. I love as I looked for a pay phone gumshoe detective Elvis Cole. Pike is a great addition as partner.
Nice to slow down.

3 for 1 credit

I didn't care for the first 2 books, might have been the narrator. He tried, but I couldn't connect with him. I liked the last book best, not sure if it's the narrator or if writer got better with experience.
One reviewer said Crais was as good as my 2 favorites, Sandford and Connelly. I don't agree, my favorites are head and shoulders above these 3 books. These 3 reminded me more of Parker's Spenser series, not bad, but not the best either.
Might try another Crais, especially if there's one on sale.

Patrick Lawlor couldn't be a worse choice

I have a hard time following the story because Patrick Lawlor fragments the narration like a jackhammer breaking up concrete.

Patrick overemphasizes at least one syllable in every word. He picks the syllable that he thinks deserves to be emphasized and comes down hard on it. He also adds dramatic inflection to nearly every sentence. Foreign accents and female voices are poorly done and suffer from the same overemphasized and dramatically inflected issues that sucks the meaning out of the rest of the narration. I finished the Monkey's raincoat--working hard to follow the story--and am in the middle of the second book in the tri-part collection. I will finish it but it is painful to listen to and difficult to follow. It took me a while to figure out why but I finally was able to analyze what is going on. For an excellent narrator, try The Watchman, in the same series--narrated by James Daniels. James has the kind of matter-of-fact delivery that fits the genre and doesn't hammer your ears with haphazard and questionably applicable emphasis and inflection. I would complain more but this collection was a really good value and I'm looking forward to the third book and a different narrator.

Highly likeable characters

Great books! I had read some of the more recent in the series and have now gone back to the first books and am very happy that these books are just as good.

They were written in the late 80's and 90's, so are a little dated, but the writing is solid. No illogical foibles and the action is quick and dialog good.

Elvis and Joe are highly likeable characters and you end up caring about them, which for me is what makes a story great.

Some people mentioned that the first book was abridged. If it was, I didn't miss anything. All 3 books were complete with no gaps.

Absolute bargain to get the 3 books for 1 credit.

Change in Narrator Wasn't Great

I thought Patrick Lawlor did a good job and the first 2 books he created Elvis Cole for me, he was good at pulling off the jokes and had good inflections. The third book with Mel Foster lost it for me. His narration was not as good and he just didn't pull of the character like Lawlor did. I will not continue with the series as Foster is too stiff and just doesn't portray the character as I felt he should be. I found both narrators easy to understand and Foster might be good in something else, but it's so difficult when the narrator is changed. So 4 stars to Lawlor and 1 for Foster.