Josh Shoe seems to have stumbled onto some important Los Angeles secrets. When Josh’s mother hires Elvis Cole and Joe Pike to find her son, she’s convinced he’s been taken to Area 51. Before Elvis can even dismiss her half-baked ideas, he’s in the middle of a bigger case than he ever imagined. Retired government operatives, Chinese real-estate magnates with ties to foreign intelligence, corrupt city planners—all of them want Josh Shoe and anyone associated with him dead. Elvis doesn’t like his odds. Then Lucy Chenier, Elvis’ old flame, comes back to town, maybe for good, and the tension gets turned up to 11 when Lucy’s past and her reasons for leaving collide with Elvis and Pike’s current case.

Robert Crais has been writing Elvis since the 1980s, but Crais doesn’t turn in a cookie-cutter story with Racing the Light. Instead, he leverages the history of his long-running series to create a fresh novel of suspense and soul, making Elvis and his taciturn partner, Joe Pike, feel more real and immediate than ever. Always the master craftsman, Crais balances Elvis’ inner turmoil with a complicated search into the shadows of the City of Angels.