Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Suspect
Suspect
Suspect
Audiobook (abridged)8 hours

Suspect

Written by Robert Crais

Narrated by MacLeod Andrews

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

About this audiobook

For twenty-five years, Robert Crais has written extraordinary novels of crime and suspense. He is “a master of crime fiction” (Associated Press); “his novels get better with every new book” (Portland Oregonian); “Crais is hands-down the world’s greatest crime writer” (The Huffington Post).

But in Suspect, he may have written his most remarkable novel of all.

LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well, not since a shocking nighttime assault by unidentified men killed his partner Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode. He is unfit for duty—until he meets his new partner.

Maggie is not doing so well, either. The German shepherd survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing explosives before she lost her handler to an IED and sniper attack, and her PTSD is as bad as Scott’s.

They are each other’s last chance. He was a young cop on the rise, she was bred to guard and protect. Now they are shunned and shunted to the side. They are suspect. And together they will set out to investigate the one case that no one wants them to touch: the identity of the men who murdered Stephanie.

Nine months and sixteen days later, they remained free. They were still out there.

What they begin to find is nothing like what Scott has been told, and where it will lead them will take them both through the darkest moments of their own personal hells. Whether they will make it out again, no one can say.

Thrilling, emotional, intense, with some of the best characters and well-crafted writing in all of crime fiction, Suspect is further proof that “Crais just keeps getting better” (Publishers Weekly).

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 22, 2013
ISBN9781480505520
Suspect
Author

Robert Crais

Robert Crais lives in LA and is the author of the bestselling Cole and Pike novels.

More audiobooks from Robert Crais

Related to Suspect

Related audiobooks

Action & Adventure Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Suspect

Rating: 4.281818181818182 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

110 ratings54 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is an awful effort by a writer who had previously become one of my favorites. Crais' trademark humor and decent dialogue are missing, there's no character development to speak of, the prose is generic at best, and the plot wasn't particularly exciting. The only romantic involvement, another of Crais' standbys, is between man and dog.

    Crais seems to have caught the Michael Connelly disease: reach a certain level of popularity, then try to squeeze as much out of it as possible by cranking out 'product'.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow, what a treat! I loved the narrative, the betrayal, plot twists and there were times when I was truely too scared to read the next paragraph! Exceptional writing skills. I will have to read the next book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I picked this book up from my husband's nightstand because I was bored and had nothing to read....what a gem! I was riveted from the get-go. I love that it's British, loved the writing style, and was captivated by the unfolding story and the "what's going to happen next?" question every time I picked it up. A good ride!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quick read about a cop suffering from PTSD after a shooting that was fatal to his partner and the K-9 dog with which he teams up. Maggie was injured and traumatized in Afghanistan where she sniffed for evidence of IEDs. Scott and Maggie help each other cope with their psychological wounds as they try to solve the mystery behind the shooting. Crais illuminates the bond between man and dog without giving Maggie special powers and creates two likable and flawed characters. The mystery takes backseat to the relationship but it's adequate for a nice, summer read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm glad to see Lescroart return to basics. Rather than escalating violence done to his main protagonists (Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky), he tells the story of a colleague of Hardy's who married the head of his law firm, David Freeman, only to have her husband gunned down. Gina Roake needs a long time to recover. She is a good lawyer, but she has never defended a murder suspect. On the advice of her ex-lover and politician, Jedd Conley, she takes the case of a outdoors writer accused of killing his wealthy and ambitious doctor wife. There are plenty of suspects and great insights into the workings of the criminal justice system, especially the mindsets of the police and prosecution once a suspect is arrested. This is a good book for lovers of San Francisco and of seeing justice triumph.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is an excellent debut by a new mystery writer.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    SUSPECT is a crime novel,and it's not great literature. Although I prefer more literary books (and, yes, there is such thing as a literary crime novel), this book is more than just a who-done-it.Robert Crais describes a wonderful man-dog relationship. Unlike so many man-dog relationship fiction, such as RACING IN THE RAIN, this story never sounds childish. This is why I rate SUSPECT highly.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I thought that was an excellent thriller with good characters, fast paced plot and - a big factor - great and sentimental dog story. Overall, easy read thriller with heartwarming add-on.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    LAPD cop Scott James is battling PTSD after a violent incident where his partner, Stephanie, was killed and Scott was seriously wounded. More than nine months have slipped by and the detectives assigned to crack the case have come up empty. Meanwhile, Scott has joined LAPD’s elite K9 squad, a position he may not be capable of filling given his frequent flashbacks, anger and an inability to let go of the guilt he feels every time he thinks of Stephanie.Maggie is suffering from PTSD too – but hers is of the canine variety. After surviving three tours as a marine K9 in Iraq and Afghanistan, the dog is back in the United States after witnessing the sudden and violent death of her handler. Donated to the LAPD for evaluation, her chances at a come back as a police canine don’t look too promising – she reacts with fear when a gun is fired, and seems to have lost her heart for the work she was bred to do.Scott and Maggie seem meant for each other. It isn’t long before both are plunged deeply into the murder investigation of Stephanie, but someone doesn’t want them to get any closer to the truth. What they discover together will either kill them both, or help them find their way back to the jobs they love.Robert Crais has written a suspense-thriller with loads of heart. I was only 15 pages into the novel and found myself riveted…and crying. I have to confess, I am often put off by novels that feature working dogs. I almost always find errors or plot holes that don’t fit with my knowledge of what it is like to work a dog. So I was pleasantly surprised to find myself pulled convincingly into Suspect, a book which captivated me and kept me reading nearly non stop.Crais clearly has done his research (although he offers an author’s note which explains some looseness with the “facts” for the sake of the story). I loved that he chose a female German Shepherd as the working K9 in the book. When I was working my dog in Search and Rescue, I was dismayed that so many law enforcement personnel thought the best dogs in police work had to be male…a belief I frequently argued against based on my female dog’s heart, drive, courage and intelligence.Suspect is first and foremost a fast paced thriller. But it is also something a little more. Crais explores the after effects of violence on those in law enforcement – both human and dog. He also creates a love story of sorts between Scott and Maggie. Anyone who has ever opened their heart to a dog knows the power in that relationship.There are sections in Suspect which are written solely from Maggie’s limited point of view – a technique that can quickly go awry if not done well. Crais clearly knows what it is like to live inside the brain of a dog and these parts of the novel were some of the best.Suspect is a novel which will appeal to anyone who loves dogs or has worked a dog – but it will also reel in readers who love great characters and fast-paced writing. Alone, Scott and Maggie are just characters struggling to recover from trauma, but together they are a crime team with incredible heart who will win over readers.Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Perhaps you'll start this book, as I did, by wishing it had been Elvis Cole #14 and/or Joe Pike #5. But you will definitely finish it cheering and hoping that it is actually Scott & Maggie #1!This was a great new read from Robert Crais with a cast of new characters (although the hyper sex-drived SID criminalist John Chen from the Cole/Pike books makes a cameo appearance in his usual sleazy style) centring around two post-traumatic stress syndrome damaged survivors trying to make a go of it again. The trick is, one of them is a dog!This isn't one of those anthropomorphic animal books where the dog is assigned all sorts of unlikely human-like thoughts. Maggie the german shepherd comes across as a real dog with dog-like characteristics and no more than that, but those traits are more than enough to make you love her.And by the end you will be looking at your closest loved ones and smiling and thinking to yourself: "Pack!"Highly recommended!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Excellent book. The information on PTSD was correct and wonderfully presented. I think this partnership should appear in other books. The crime elements were not too difficult to work out but it is always nice to read a detective story with nice characters.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is fantastic. The first section is actually really hard to read; the description of a Marine dying in combat from the point of view of his dog is utterly heartbreaking, and very well written. Likewise, the mirroring event where Our Hero loses his partner in the crossfire of a shootout is heartwrenching. The narrative of man and dog helping each other to recover from their trauma draws on all of the old Man's Best Friend tropes, and turns it around into a new kind of mystery thriller where the reader is given cues and clues from two radically different perspectives. In summation: read it, and make sure you have kleenex handy.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When an unknown woman is found brutally murdered, the police call in psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin, who has a gift for figuring people out based on non-verbal cues in hopes he can help them figure out who the victims was. O'Loughlin is a very talented man with a roster of interesting clients, one of which is particularly disturbed and disturbing. But he also has secrets of his own to hide, and quickly goes from being a collaborator to becoming the prime suspect in the case, and DI Vincent Ruiz isn't willing to give him any breaks. Someone is trying to frame the doctor and he knows exactly who it is, but he'll have to put his own life at risk to prove the killer is at large if he has any hope of putting his life back together. I thought this was a great thriller and took an instant liking to the psychologist, as the principal character and narrator of the story, so immediately followed up with the next book in the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Crais introduces us to a new hero or should I say two new heroes in this novel. Scott James is a LAPD officer who is almost killed in a shooting in which he lost his partner. Recovering from PTSD he is reassigned to the K-9 unit where he meets Maggie, a German Shepard which is also suffering from PSTD after being wounded in Afghanistan and losing her handler.Despite his inexperience, Scott quickly melds with Maggie and after nine months asks if he can study the files on his unsolved shooting. Slowing he sees inconsistencies and missed evidence and when he questions certain possible witnesses, they are killed. Harassment from some officers but support from other plus with the aid of Maggie's amazing nose he slowly figures out who was responsible for the attack on him and his partner.The reader learns a great deal about how dogs track using their amazing ability to smell thousands of senses and sort out the ones they want to follow. Each breed uses different techniques with some like hounds tracking on the ground while Shepherds follow sent through the air. Scott and Maggie appear again in the Crais novel, The Promise.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the first book by Michael Robotham that I've read and when I started I wasn't too sure I would enjoy it. It started out slowly but I soon got into the story, mainly because I read it so quickly. I think it would be a different matter if I read this over the 10 days it normally takes me to read a book of this size. I didn't know what to expect with this novel but the main character, Joseph O'Loughlin, grows on your. Unlike most crime oriented books this does not feature a detective in the main role and that is a nice change. It's the first book in a series and I'm sure to read more and see where this series will go.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Complex, interesting, and gripping. A new author with a long list--oh joy!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Joseph O'Loughlin, psychologist becomes a murder suspect when a nurse and former colleague is found dead from multiple stab wound, all of them self inflicted. DI Vincent Ruiz is the policeman/investigator
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Scott and Maggie have both been seriously wounded and suffer from PTSD. Scott is a police officer. Maggie is a German Shepherd who worked in Afghanistan. Her beloved handler died there and Maggie is getting a try-out with LAPD. The story is about the relationship of Scott and Maggie and about Scott trying to solve the mystery of who shot him and killed his partner. Both aspects of the story are riveting. I loved that the author mixed in a few short chapters where we see the perspective of Maggie on what is happening. I highly recommend this book. It is my first by this author, so I'm eager to see what else he's got in that large number of books he's written.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After a woman is brutally slain, investigators bring psychiatrist Joe O'Loughlin in for expert consultation. Joe is shocked to discover the dead woman is a former patient of his who cried rape when he rebuffed her sexual advances. Citing doctor/patient confidentiality, Joe hides this information. But the truth emerges, and suddenly he is the prime suspect, even as he comes to a shocking conclusion - the profile of the murderer closely matches another of his patients.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Robotham's best. Suspect presents a highly likable but also flawed narrator that you can't help but root for. The character is the best part, wrapped in a murder mystery that takes our protagonist from London to the Welsh countryside and to other parts of Europe as he works to clear his name.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Good plot, not too predictable, good guys came out on top, even a hero dog. What’s not to like?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A traumatized combat veteran meets a police officer recovering from his own wounds and trauma. They fall in love and band together to solve the bizarre nighttime shooting and the murder of the officer's partner. It's touching and suspenseful. The combat veteran happens to be a very loyal and intelligent German shepherd.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Good twists and turns. A great book to listen to.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Suspest is about a cop who lost his partner in a shootout and a military dog who lost her handler in Afghanistan. This is the 1st Robert Crais novel I have read and I enjoyed it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    London psychologist whose past returns to haunt him.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What makes this story so interesting is the dog as protagonist. The dog is one of main characters and has an interior life. Overall a good story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have been a fan of Robert Crais for years. His Elvis Cole /Joe Pike novels are always wonderful. When I first heard this wasn't going to be an Elvis-Joe novel, I was a bit disappointed. I now hand my head in shame for feeling that way. This is my new favorite Crais novel, and I am hoping it will be the start of a new series. This book tells the story of a damaged police officer and a damage military service dog that manage to find each other and help one another to heal. The mystery is compelling as always, and the characters are ones that I would love to meet in real life. Highly recommended!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Psychologist is accused of killing the nurse who charged him with sexual harassment, he refuses to give an alibi because he was cheating on his wife with a former patient. When his lover is then murdered, he realizes one of his patients has very cleverly set him up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book, and I'm not even a dog person. There was an interesting mystery, a heart warming partnership between the police officer and his canine partner (both with ptsd) and a very suspenseful conclusion. I am glad the series seems to be continuing. The narrator of the audio book did a great job with all of the characters, including the dog.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Maggie made this book for me. Maggie is a German Shepherd who was first trained by the Marines to be a dual-purpose dog smelling out IED's and protecting her platoon. Actually her only interest is protecting her handler/her alpha/her pack of two: the rest of the platoon just benefits from this relationship. The reader gets an amazing insight into the mind of Maggie and what it's like to be a working dog, first with the Marines and after a harrowing traumatic incident on the battlefield, a police dog with the LAPD's K9 unit.The K9 unit is where she hooks up with Scott James, an officer newly assigned to the unit following a harrowing traumatic incident of his own, after which he refused to take a medical retirement. James and Maggie bond together and prove they both still have it while looking for suspects in James' shooting that has remained unsolved. I can not believe that Crais has not done more with these characters other these characters other than, I understand, a part in one of his Elvis Cole/Joe Pike books released last fall. I'm going to have to go back to working my way through that series, not a favorite, just to get more Maggie. She's that good.