Taken (An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel, Book 15) - Crime Thriller Mystery Series - Perfect for Mystery Lovers & Book Club Discussions

I don't use that word lightly, but in this case it applies. There are some books so compelling that you carry them around--everywhere--reading a chapter here, a paragraph there. I think of Andrew Vachss's debut novel Flood, Harris' Silence of the Lambs . . . and now, Robert Crais's Taken.Abduction novels are not my favorites, but here all of the dangers of such novels (claustrophobic settings, excrutiating emotional situations) are happily avoided. Crais uses short chapters, multiple points of view and mixed time levels to create a masterpiece of suspense. This, however, is not the kind of suspense that entails unimaginable resolutions. We know that Elvis and Joe Pike are going to triumph in the end; what we wait for, what we anxiously anticipate, is the body count.Elvis has been hired by a woman in Los Angeles to find her daughter, a star student from Loyola Marymount and an all-around good person. She and her boyfriend (concerning whom the mother has some reservations) have been in Palm Springs. The two disappear and the mother receives demands for her daughter's return at a ridiculously low price: $500.What the mother doesn't know is that her daughter and her boyfriend have been swept up in an unrelated event in which a group of bajadores (bandits who steal from other bandits) have captured a group of illegal immigrants. They then proceed to call the relatives of their captives and demand ransom. They put the captives on the phone and torture them so that their relatives hear the screams and are more likely to loosen their purse strings. When the money runs out the captives are murdered and thrown into ditches in the desert.Fortunately, Elvis and Joe are on the case and they're aided by Nancie Stendahl (an ATF muck-a-muck who is the aunt of the captured Latina girl's boyfriend). Aunt Nancie is pure standup, but she has to work within the law. Not so for Jon Stone, an addition to the cast who is an old compadre of Joe Pike's, a veteran of various mercenary engagements, Delta force operations, and so on. (Note to Mr. Crais: we absolutely must have more of Jon Stone in the future.)I won't spoil the plot, but I will say that Elvis is taken captive--a minor setback, since he (and the reader) know that the cavalry riding in his direction consist of Joe and Jon (not to mention Aunt Nancie).And there's more. The captured illegals include a group of Koreans whose transport to the U.S. has been paid for by the leaders of the Korean mob. These individuals are not amused by the actions of the bajadores and they are willing to talk to Elvis, Joe and Jon about a possible partnership. The bajadores, of course, are very, very nasty bits of business, given to intimidating the weak, abusing women and reducing their captives to animals. They call them their pollos. We know very early on what these people need: a visit from Joe Pike and his assortment of friends and allies.It's early in the year, but Taken may just be the suspense thriller of 2012. It is already Robert Crais's best book. Do not miss it.