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    The Monkey's Raincoat
    The Monkey's Raincoat
    The Monkey's Raincoat
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Monkey's Raincoat

    Written by Robert Crais

    Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    “Elvis Cole provides more fun for the reader than any L.A. private eye to come along in years.”—Joseph Wambaugh

    WINNER OF THE ANTHONY AND MACAVITY AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL • NOMINATED FOR THE EDGAR AND SHAMUS AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL

    Meet Elvis Cole, L.A. private eye . . .

    He quotes Jiminy Cricket and carries a .38. He's a literate, wisecracking Vietnam vet who is determined never to grow up.

    Praise for The Monkey's Raincoat

    “Outstanding characters, tight plot, and scintillating prose style. . . . This fast-paced story speeds Elvis Cole to a chilling, heart-stopping ending.”—Mystery Scene

    “Is Bob Crais good? Put it this way: if they're taking you out to put you against the firing squad wall, and you want to enjoy your last moments on earth, pass on the last cigarette and ask for an Elvis Cole novel.”—Harlan Ellison

    “Far and away the most satisfying private eye novel in years. Grab this one—it's a winner!”—Lawrence Block

    “The best private eye novel of the year . . . lots of action; bright, crisp dialogue; and sharply drawn characters.”—The Denver Post

    “Robert B. Parker has some competition on his hands. . . . Elvis Cole is an appealing character and Crais's style is fresh and funny.”—Sue Grafton

    “In Crais, a new star has appeared on the private eye scene—a dazzling first novel.”—Tony Hillerman

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateFeb 29, 2008
    ISBN9781423356110
    The Monkey's Raincoat
    Author

    Robert Crais

    Robert Crais is the author of the bestselling Cole & Pike novels. A native of Louisiana, Crais moved to Hollywood in the late 70s where he began a successful career in television, writing scripts for such major series as Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice and Hill Street Blues. In the mid 80s, Crais created a series of crime novels based around the characters Cole & Pike. In addition, Crais has also written several bestselling standalone thrillers. Robert Crais lives in LA with his wife and family.

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    Reviews for The Monkey's Raincoat

    4/5

    134 ratings20 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Couldn't listen to it, the audio quality is terrible. It's so muffled you can't understand half of what the narrator is saying.
    • 5/5
      Love Elvis and pike. Try this book you’ll like it.
    • 4/5
      Good story. I liked that there was underlying humor throughout.
    • 4/5
      The first in his Elvis Cole series, I really enjoyed The Monkey’s Raincoat by Robert Crais Interesting characters that you want to know more about (especially the mysterious partner Joe Pike) and a story that holds your attention with snappy dialogue and fast-paced action. Set in the late 1980’s in L.A., this is a trip down memory lane via the fashions, music and trivia that is mentioned over the course of the book. Elvis Cole is a Vietnam vet who has become a Private Investigator. Quirky doesn’t even begin to describe Elvis with his Disney decorated office, marital arts, flippant tongue and beer drinking cat. This particular case involves a missing husband and son along with stolen drugs, played out on the fringes of Hollywood.Flashy and stylish but with lots of substance, The Monkey’s Raincoat is an extremely promising debut and I can hardly wait to see what happens to Elvis next.
    • 4/5
      I started this series with #7, but decided to swing back to the beginning. I like Elvis Cole. In some ways he's like your typical P.I., but he actually has a sense of humor. Plus, he feeds his cat beer and has a bit of an obsession with Disney characters. I have noticed that he has a bit of a habit of getting too involved with his clients, but I think that's what makes him special. I liked the mystery behind this one (a little bit of murder, a little bit of drugs, a little bit of kidnapping), but I wonder if Elvis and Joe are coming out of it a little too scott-free in the end.
    • 4/5
      What do you read when you've worked your way through Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen, Spenser and Nero Wolfe? Someone in the Mystery Book Group suggested Elvis Cole and I think I will soon be working my way through Cole's adventures. He's not as intellectual as Nero Wolfe but a little more sophisticated than Archie Goodwin. And considering he managed to sleep with not only his client but her best friend in the first 150 pages, there's the potential for plenty of action. He does yoga and has an actual mercenary - trips to southeast asian jungles and all - for a partner, but the cops still seem to like him. I'm really looking forward to more of this series.
    • 4/5
      Very good. This reminded me of Robert Parker's writing and the Spencer series. I enjoyed it quite a bit and will definately continue to explore this series. Elvis is quite good...
    • 3/5
      Bundled with Lullaby Town and Stalking the Angel It becomes repetitive after a while and while it's not a bad read but a bit predictable.
    • 4/5
      I can see why this made the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association top 100 favorite mysteries. The narrator, Elvis Cole, is an intensely sympathetic Vietnam veteran (Army Ranger) with a drinking problem and a heart of gold. His business partner, Joe Pike, is a laconic mercenary who never smiles or takes off his sunglasses, and has Cole's back in the worst situations. One nice twist is the characters' physical competence -- things don't always work out for them, but where another author would have a protagonist take a physical beating, Crais often lets Cole and Pike fight or bluff their way out. At least in this book, this doesn't strain credulity much more than the basic plot. Which is classic noir: damsel in distress needs help, husband and son are missing. Early reveals about the husband's cheap affairs, and corruption in high places, drag Cole and Pike into a full-on drug war. Altogether, it's great entertainment. Except, there's this really weird gender dynamic that plays out as the plot develops, and the message it sends is: a woman who takes charge and bosses around another woman is messed up - but it may help straighten her out if a strong, generous guy sleeps with her. It's perfectly fine for a super-competent guy to boss around the weaker woman, and it will probably help her if he sleeps with her, too. That aspect of the book is creepy, or maybe it's just supposed to be wish fulfillment for male readers.
    • 5/5
      If you like Robert B. Parker's Spencer novels you will like Robert Crais. Pike is to Cole as Hawk is to Spencer. The setting is Los Angeles instead of Boston. There is a cat instead of a dog. There is no Susan yet.
    • 4/5
      Fun with good characters and fast-moving plot.
    • 4/5
      Ellen Lang's husband has gone missing and it seems like he's taken their 8 year old son with him and she wants Elvis Cole to find them. Elvis is a retired Vietnam vet turned PI who runs a detective agency with his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike. The case soon takes some nasty turns and he has to change his opinion of this being a simple domestic squabble into something much more serious.There's not much new in this book which uses a lot of old staples of the genre but it does so with style and I found it to be a real page-turner. If I had the next in he series then I'd be very tempted to pick that as my next read. Unfortunately I don't own it (yet!) so it'll have to wait until I do.
    • 4/5
      The Monkey's Raincoat is as fast-paced as Michael Connelley and a witty as the best Janet Evanovitch. It's also a perfect little time capsule for the 1980s (he wears a white blazer and looks for pay phones constantly). I must now read all of the Elvis Cole PI books, which will probably take a few weeks.
    • 5/5
      Not a deep and meaningful read, but nevertheless very enjoyable. Elvis Cole is a wisecracking, smart but not too mature detective who helps Ellen Lang find her missing husband and son. Joe Pike is Elvis Cole's partner, and a memorable character he is. A human shark, he's a Vietnam veteran who never really came home. He's more comfortable when he's sneaking through the woods killing people. Crais gives us the source of the title in an epigraph at the beginning of the novel, but I must admit I was disappointed that there were neither monkeys nor raincoats (much less monkey's raincoats) in the novel.
    • 4/5
      I re-read this recently and wasn't as impressed as I was the first time. Crais sets up Elvis Cole as a quirky character, with the yoga, feeding the cat beer, and his smart-aleck remarks about almost everything. But I don't see how these quirks affect him when the action gets going; he loses a lot of his personality and becomes more of a standard action hero. Maybe that's the point, that when the chips are down our idiosyncracies disappear, but I don't think so. Elvis walks a fine line between working with the police and going around them when he's so inclined, and a lot of his actions are ethically questionable. I didn't like him as well as I did the first time i read the book. However, he and some of the other characters (including Joe Pike, who according to Elvis "thinks Clint Eastwood talks too much") are interesting enough that I'll try at least one or two more of Crais's books about them.
    • 4/5
      Genre: Private Investigator, #1 Elvis Cole mysteryFirst Line: "I'm sorry, Mr. Cole, this has nothing to do with you."Several years ago people began mentioning Elvis Cole to me. Hmm...my last name, my mother's favorite singer.... I duly filed away the information. The people doing the mentioning probably thought I'd blown them off, to which I would reply: Just because I don't lay rubber the second you mention an author I might like doesn't mean I'm not paying attention. Sometimes I think part of my brain is an aquifer; it takes time for some of these authors to percolate down to the Do Something Level. I finally reached the Do Something Level with Elvis Cole, and now I've got a big smile on my face knowing what I've got in store for me.Elvis Cole is a private investigator with a shadowy partner, Joe Pike. Joe isn't around all that much, which suits most people just fine. Let's face it-- the man scares people to death, and according to Elvis, "Pike thinks Clint Eastwood talks too much." Elvis has a life that suits him just fine. A Vietnam vet, his hero is Peter Pan, and he thinks very highly of Jiminy Cricket. (So do I. Jiminy taught me how to spell encyclopedia.) I also have to admit that the Pinocchio clock he has on his office wall fascinates me. Peter Pan...Jiminy Cricket...Pinocchio...when Ellen Lang walked into his office to hire him to find her missing husband and son, I knew that I was about to embark on a rather unusual investigation. I was led to a viper's den of criminals, drugs and sex, but I feared not, for Cole and Pike were with me.By the time I finished, I had some new friends in Elvis and Joe. (I have a healthy respect for Joe, but he doesn't scare me. Yet.) The investigation itself isn't all that complex or unusual, but it moves quickly and taught me to pay attention to small clues and subtle nuances. The real reason why this book is such a standout rests squarely on the shoulders of Elvis Cole. It's as though, once he made it out of Vietnam in one piece and decided he wanted to be Peter Pan, his decision stripped away several layers of adult apathy and cynicism. This man can eat ice cream, watch an obnoxious customer torment the counter girl...and be incapable of pretending it isn't happening. When Mr. Obnoxious is persuaded to leave, Elvis leaves his business card with the girl. "If anyone ever bothers you...let me know."And that's the strength of Elvis Cole--he cares. If that's what happens when a person decides to be Peter Pan, I say we should all start flapping our arms and taking flying lessons. In The Monkey's Raincoat, Robert Crais has set his stage with two superb characters in Cole and Pike, and I just happen to have Acts Two (Stalking the Angel) and Three (Lullaby Town) waiting in the wings.Now if I could only find myself one of those Pinocchio clocks....
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this, my first Robert Crais and look forward to lots more.Elvis Cole, Vietnam Vet has gone into the private eye business with partner Joe Pike. In this episode, he is faced with trying to find his client's missing husband and 8 yr old son. As Elvis begins detecting, he finds himself embroiled in a nasty fight over drugs, with the requisite dealers, Hollywood talent scouts, domineering friends, Mexicans, Eskimos, a friendly cop willing to help him, and the stereotypical upper level "special ops" cop pushing him out of the picture. At one point, all I could think of was Rockie and Dennis in The Rockford Files. The plot is well written, the character are particularly well drawn -- I found it easy to feel like I knew them and their motivations, and the setting was perfect for drugs, crimes, sex, abduction and murder. Can't say too much else without spoiling.
    • 3/5
      I picked this up because I was looking for a "replacement" for Lee Child's Reacher books. This book is certainly not a Reacher novel. I'm hoping its "introductory" nature (i.e. it's the first in a series with the same characters so there was a lot of groundwork laying) and that future books are a little less character-development and a bit more in the story-development.As a detective book, it's sort of okay - decent enough that I finished it, but not good enough that I enjoyed finishing it, or that there was enough suspense that one might be tempted to look ahead to see what was going to happen. The story premise was a bit lame (like some gangbanger is going to go through all this hassle for such a little bit of coke?). And it's a bit dated, and the women characters are useless and/or stereotyped - I'm hoping this is a result of the datedness and not of the author's inability to write women who aren't useless.Anyway, I will read the next in the series and cross my fingers that they get better.
    • 4/5
      An entry in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series.In Cole's office is a limp, beaten-down woman, Ellen Lang, whose husband Mort and her 9 year old son Perry are missing; she wants Elvis to find them BUT she doesn't want the police involved in any way. Elvis does his best under the restrictions laid out by Ellen. Not only does he have very little luck but the Lang house has been ransacked professionally and without intending to, Ellen involves the police. The case turns nastier as it begins to be clear that somehow or another, the disappearances are linked to drugs.I would classify this novel as soft-boiled private eye as opposed to hard-boiled police procedural. Cole in many respects reminds me of Lehane's Patrick Kenzie of the Kenzie/Gennaro series; published in 1987, Cole is the predecessor. Both are the lighter, self-deprecating wisecracking detectives, rather than the hard-edged cynical type--much easier to like. The writing is not dated, despite the 20 years that have passed, speaking very well for the book. There are some quaint anachronisms, such as Cole writing a report on a typewriter! Other than that and the models of some of the cars, the writing holds up really well.Cole and Pike are both appealing characters in different ways, cole the more human, Pike because he is, so to speak, a softer psychopathic type. There's enough there to keep curiosity about what happens to the characters at a good enough level to want to read another book in the series.The plot is very good and fans of such things will be more than content with the great attention paid to details about guns and ammunition. The locale, the Los Angeles Greater Metropolitan area, is adequately described.A very good book in what seems to be an interesting series so far. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been reading some Chandler lately, but this guy Elvis sounds like he went to the Philip Marlowe School of detection. Always the snappy come back. Short, non-sentence inner-monologue one-liners tacked on here and there. Trouble with the cops. Hell on women. The only thing is the partner – Pike. He reminds me a little of Bubba in the Gennaro/Kenzie series from Dennis Lehane. Although Pike and Cole pre-date Angie & Patrick by almost 10 years.It was a fast mover. Good dialogue. Enough description to give a nice sense of setting without getting lost in the details. Almost made me laugh out loud a couple of times, but not quite. Smiles though. Nice tight little mystery. The dope in the fishtank gag was pretty good. I should have spotted it earlier than I did but I didn’t. I’ll probably read more of these. They’re light reading w/just enough sex & violence thrown in.