You went to the Zone, you lost your edge. He had been all day coming to this, and here he was: the SWAT guys used to talk about it. Anger and rage were nonstop tickets panic was an express. It was a place of white noise where emotions reigned and reason was meager. Take this passage, from a scene when Talley's face-to-face with the man who's holding his own wife and daughter hostage: The action speeds to its climax with the velocity of a heat-seeking missile, which makes it almost criminal to slow down long enough to savor the great writing. Then he ratchets up the dramatic tension: there's something in Walter Smith's house that a ruthless Mob boss wants, and he'll sacrifice anyone to get it-which puts Talley's own family in danger. Soon his deputies have surrounded the house where the inept robbers have taken Walter Smith and his two children hostage, and Talley's back in his worst dream again: until the county sheriff's full-fledged SWAT team arrives and takes over, he has to negotiate for their lives.Ĭrais keeps the point of view moving from Talley to the punks to the hostages as the situation unfolds in the house and on the ground. Now, three smalltime punks go on the run after a grocery store robbery and killing in Talley's town.
Jeff Talley, the police chief in a small Southern California town, still has nightmares about the young hostage who died when he made the wrong call in his previous job as a negotiator for an LAPD SWAT team.
It worked in that book, and it works even better in this one. Its complex, multidimensional hero was a damaged cop haunted by her past failures. Requiem and Voodoo River), he produced Demolition Angel, his first standalone suspense novel. Last year, after eight popular books featuring private eye Elvis Cole (including L.A. Robert Crais is the real thing: a writer who keeps topping himself.
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