She Treads Softly: The Big Empty

Monday, December 16, 2024

The Big Empty

The Big Empty by Robert Crais
1/14/25; 384 pages
Penguin Group/Putnam
Elvis Cole and Joe Pike #20

The Big Empty by Robert Crais is a very highly recommended, excellent investigative thriller and the twentieth novel in the series featuring PI Elvis Cole and his partner ex-Marine Joe Pike. For those new to the series this would work well as a standalone too.

Thomas Jacob Beller, disappeared ten years ago when his daughter Traci was thirteen. No evidence of foul play was discovered by the police and it was assumed he abandoned his family. Traci, a 23-year-old influencer with 8.2 million followers on her site The Baker Next Door, never believed her father would abandon her and she hires Elvis to find him.

Thomas, who owned a heating and air-conditioning company with Traci’s uncle, disappeared after a service call. Elvis begins looking into the case. The evidence says Thomas was last seen at the SurfMutt hamburger stand and Elvis's visit there leads him to potential witnesses with new evidence. The inquiry also attracts some malignant attention.

Elvis is putting himself into a dangerous situation in this well-written, un-put-downable thriller. Elvis really puts himself into harms way in this outing. Expect Elvis's trademark humor and relaxed manner along with his intelligence and insight as he investigates. Joe Pike is a capable, intelligent enigma and continues to be a welcomed addition to the team.

The investigation is tension-packed, interesting, and complicated, with plenty of twists and new information uncovered along the way. The suspense increases with each flip of the page. Just when you think the case is solved, there is a big shake-up making the case even more devastating and troubling.

The Big Empty is a dynamic, exceptional investigative thriller. Thanks to Penguin Group/Putnam for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.