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    The Monkey's Raincoat
    The Monkey's Raincoat
    The Monkey's Raincoat
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    The Monkey's Raincoat

    Written by Robert Crais

    Narrated by David Stuart

    4.5/5

    ()

    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 25, 2006
    ISBN9781423301394
    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

    4.5/5

    71 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Robert Crais creates first rate characters. Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Have an amazing chemistry. Plenty of suspense, yet I found myself chuckling here and there. I’m really looking forward to reading all of the rest of these books.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 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...

      1 person found this helpful

    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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
      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.
    • 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.