Private eye with a vocal weapon

DATE                  05/23/93
NEWSPAPER             THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION               SHOW
EDITION               MORNING
PAGE                  F26
STORY LENGTH          17 INCHES
HEADLINE              Private eye with a vocal weapon
BYLINE/CREDIT         DAN FROOMKIN:The Orange County Register
SUBJECT TERMS         BOOKS

  Ever thought about chucking your loser job and becoming one of
  those smart-mouthed detectives you're always reading about?
     I have.
     But one of the many reasons I never get around to it is that in
  real life, the more smart-mouthed you are, the less likely it is
  that anyone will talk to you, much less spill the deep, dark
  secrets you're trying to uncover.
     And if you run across someone real mean and toss out a really
  sizzling one-liner, they might just have to kill you.
     In Robert Crais' insubstantial but terrifically amusing novel
  "Free Fall," private dick Elvis Cole (making a fourth appearance)
  has no such problems.
     For one, after a bit of Elvis' wry and self-satisfied repartee,
  even the most notoriously uncooperative people in the world -- gang
  members, grieving families, cops, newspaper reporters -- knock
  themselves out telling Elvis everything he wants to know.
     And not even the smartest-mouthed guy in the world need fear
  death when his backup is Superman. If you thought Spenser's Hawk
  was tough and taciturn, Elvis' Joe Pike is Hawk made out of white
  steel.
     Oh, and Elvis himself is perfect. He drives a Corvette, looks
  like Kevin Costner, loves his cat and is never, ever, wrong.
     In short, he's easy to identify with.
     What Crais has done is take Robert Parker's formula and play
  around with it. Elvis is hipper than Spenser; Pike is whiter than
  Hawk.
     And like the Spenser novels, it's a lot of fun to listen to the
  cracks and watch the story unfold, as long as you can skim the
  deader parts.
     Do I care about Elvis' knowledge of and reverence for
  (apparently) every one of the martial arts? Do I really need to
  know every turn Elvis makes on his way from Hollywood to
  south-central L.A.? Do I want to hear his trite travelogues?
     Nope.
     But Crais' smart-mouth dialogue (and internal monologue) is
  fresh and crisp. And his story, though suffering from a few too
  many Rodney King parallels, moves pretty well.
     That story is set in motion when a pretty young thing asks Elvis
  to find out what's troubling her police-officer boyfriend. And
  when, moments later, said boyfriend stops by and tells Elvis to bug
  off.
     At one point, Elvis cleverly leads his pursuers into a dead end
  in a parking lot at Farmer's Market for a hysterical showdown. How
  can you plug a smart-mouthed detective with a bunch of tourists
  around capturing the action on video?
     The bad guys are amusingly at Elvis' mercy -- especially when
  Pike materializes on the scene with a 12-gauge Ithaca riot gun, the
  red arrow tattoos on each of his shoulders aglow in the sunlight.

  `Free Fall: An Elvis Cole Novel'
   Author: Robert Crais
   Info: Bantam Books, $19.95, 280 pages
   Bottom line: Smart-aleck detective Elvis Cole makes for a witty
  companion in this latest Robert Crais mystery.