The First Rule

October 26, 2009
When garment importer Frank Meyer and his family are executed in their Los Angeles home at the start of bestseller Crais's adrenaline-fueled second thriller to feature PI Joe Pike (after The Watchman
), LAPD detectives soon connect Meyer to Pike, who knew each other from their days as military contractors. Pike is convinced that Meyer, who left soldiering to start a family, wasn't dirty, even though his murder is the seventh in a series of violent robberies where the victims were all professional criminals. Determined to clear his friend's name, Pike discovers that Frank's nanny and her family have ties to Eastern European organized crime. With the help of PI partner Elvis Cole (the lead in Chasing Darkness
and eight other books), Pike engages in a dangerous—and not always legal—game of cat and mouse with some of the city's most dangerous crooks. Pike emerges as an enigmatically appealing hero, whose lethal skills never overshadow his unflappable sense of morality.

November 15, 2009
Joe Pike cuts a wide swath through L.A.'s Serbian mob in his quest to avenge an old member of the team he headed.

Years before he became a partner in Elvis Cole's detective agency (Chasing Darkness, 2008, etc.), Pike was a mercenary whose sharpshooting skills brought him into contact with a wide range of people, many of whom didn't survive the encounter. Now he's grieving because inoffensive garment importer Frank Meyer, a family man who shared some of the darkest scenes in Pike's checkered past, has been executed along with his wife, two sons and nanny. It's the seventh home invasion the LAPD has recorded in recent months, but none of the victims seem randomly chosen; in every earlier case, they had caches of drug money or product that made them natural prey. So the LAPD assumes Meyer has been continuing to lead a double life. Pike doesn't. Partly to clear his old mate's name, but mostly for revenge, he methodically sets out to hunt down the killers. Crais knows that the story of the lone vigilante going up against a powerful criminal organization is so familiar that he needs to supply new complications. These include a ten-month-old baby, a sweet series of deceptions and double-crosses, and a bulldog ATF agent who threatens to lock up Pike under the Homeland Security Act if he kills the man he's looking for. Not to worry, though: There'll be plenty of opportunities for Pike and his allies to ventilate lesser fry. Crais plants each twist carefully and detonates it expertly, but the main draw here is the triumphs of a killing machine licensed to avenge his old friend by emptying his sidearm at every target in sight.

Righteous vengeance, a reckless pace, a stratospheric body count and just enough surprises to keep you turning the pages. The pleasures may be primitive, but they're genuine.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from December 15, 2009
When Frank Meyer, his wife, and their two sons are murdered in a brutal home invasion, it's personal for longtime family friend Joe Pike. "Frank the Tank" was one of Joe's guys back in their mercenary days, and Pike wants revenge. But he also wants to be sure Frank was clean, since this was the seventh in a string of attacks that targeted people involved in illegal activities. Calling on partner Elvis Cole for detective work and old contacts from his past, Pike discovers a troubling connection between Frank and the Serbian mob, and specifically with Michael Darko, a gangster of great interest to ATF Agent Kelly Walsh. As he designs and executes a scheme with nonstop action, Pike offers himself as bait to two deadly rivals. VERDICT Not a word is wasted in this suspenseful, hair-raising page-turner that also reveals the humanity of Pike, generally a stolid and silent character, as he mourns his friend's death. Crime master Crais ("Chasing Darkness; The Two-Minute Rule") is at his best here. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 9/1/09.]Michele Leber, Arlington, VA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2009
Frank Meyer served with Joe Pike in a dozen venues. Like all mercenaries, he was accustomed to violence but seemingly had put that life behind him with a wife, a young son, and a nine-to-five job. Or maybe not. Frank Meyer and his family were slaughtered along with their nanny by a group of heavily armed men. When Joe Pike learns what happened, he resolves to find out why and who and then to take revenge. The dead nannya Serbian immigrantmay be the key. She and her nephew were staying with the Meyers, and there is no sign of the nephew. Pike enlists his partner, private investigator Elvis Cole, in the hunt, and they soon team up with the nannys sister, an edgy prostitute working for the Serbian Mob and the mother of the missing child. Pikes goals and those of his Serbian ally, who only wants her child back, are much different. Pike wants the Mob and its leaders. Crais, whose last Joe Pike novel, The Watchman (2007), hit the New YorkTimes best-seller list, likely has another on his hands here. After years as second banana to Cole, Pike has claimed center stage for his own.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)