Most of the homes were immaculate Spanish or Mediterranean villas, reminiscent of an earlier time and rich with genteel elegance. More Ross Macdonald than Raymond Chandler.
Miss Stanik? That your name, Candace Stanik? Her voice was soft, but thin and strained. Pike wasn’t listening to her; he listened past her, searching for other occupants. A crisp medicinal smell of et...
Maybe if I didn’t think about Mimi Warren or Traci Louise Fishman or Eddie Tang they would all disappear and living would be easy. Elvis Cole, Existential Detective. I liked that. Not thinking, proper...
Maybe he’s just some guy. Maybe he doesn’t have anything to do with why she left or why she took the money. Meryl Lawrence made a tiny self-loathing snort. I’ll ask her if you can find her. I took the...
Martin nodded, his head snapping up and down. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and no shirt. His torso was soft and undeveloped and covered with a thick growth of fine hair. He squinted against th...
Lucy said, The law is an adversarial contest that defines justice as staying within the rules and seeing the game to its conclusion. Justice is reaching a conclusion. It has very little to do with rig...
Lucy blew me a kiss and hung up and I lay back on the kitchen floor with the phone on my stomach, grinning at the ceiling. The cat stopped purring and came closer to stare into my face. He looked conc...
Jon started up the steps, and then he was gone. Amy wouldn’t see him at first. She’d be lost in her thoughts, checking off the rational steps that led to her rational death, and each of those steps wo...
Jon had spent most of his career gathering intelligence, providing security, rescuing hostages, and, one way or another, in direct, boots-on-the-ground combat with individuals identified as terrorists...
Jon glanced at his bedroom again. Nothing moved within the black rectangle framed by the doors. Al-Qaeda. Pike nodded. Listen, so you know, just because some idiot sells this crap doesn’t mean it’s go...
Jon burst out laughing. Spy. Jesus. Nancie Stendahl said, You always laugh at yourself? If you heard the crap in my head, you’d laugh, too. Stendahl was leaning against Pike’s Jeep, which had been rel...
Jon Stone studied his friend. Pike’s face was an empty mask, unknown and unknowable. The reflection of the city in his dark glasses was the only sign of life. Pike said, Suicide bomb in Nigeria. No su...
Jon Stone spoke thirteen languages and was fluent in six, French being one. He spoke it so well the girls thought he was a native Parisian pretending to be an American. This ability to blend with the...
Joe shifted in his seat. Reality begins changing. Lucy crossed her arms and leaned forward. Are you saying that Jonathan stays away from it? Sure. He’s got Truly. He’s got Kerris. He’s hidden by layer...
Joe Pike thought about that for a long time. Centuries. Then he said, Someone had to bring her back.
Jesus Christ, Brownell. What in hell’s got you so scared? The bar door opened and the blond guy from the Lexus came in. He was maybe six-two, with hard shoulders and sharp features and ice blue eyes t...
It's easy to sound good. All you do is leave in the parts where you act tough and forget the parts where you get shoved around.
I went back to the car. Pike said, Just family, right? Or clever impersonators.
I watched the mirror for black sedans as we pulled away, and checked every side street as we drove to the freeway. I looked for their big black beast as we climbed the ramp, and kept looking, even aft...
I wasn’t an expert on immigration, but anyone living in Southern California becomes conversant with the issue. Do