Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The sky was a beautiful crystalline blue, as bright as any I had ever seen, but a certain darkness could blot the sky [...] The darkness frightens me, but what it does to us frightens me even more. Maybe this is why I do what I do. I chase the darkness to make room for the light."

About quarter of a century ago I had read Robert Crais' The Monkey's Raincoat and loved the novel. Since I also remember another good book of his, L.A. Requiem, I decided it is time to get reacquainted with the author through some of his newer work. I chose Chasing Darkness published in 2008. Well, it is a great, compulsive read, yet not exactly of the same caliber as the two older novels. I certainly need to re-read them because maybe it was only my immaturity - at barely 40 years of age - that made me love those two books.

The setup of Chasing Darkness is enthralling: fires are raging in the Greater Los Angeles area and police officers assigned to inform residents about the evacuation order make a gruesome discovery: the body of a man who apparently killed himself. Between his feet they find a photo album, entitled My happy memories. The album contains horrifying pictures of several women, victims of brutal murders. Everything points out to the murderer reliving his thrills before committing suicide. Well, Elvis Cole assisted by his awesome sidekick, Joe Pike, will find the truth.

From Mr. Crais' two early books I remember Joe Pike as a purely cliché character: infinitely honest, infinitely macho, and invincible. He would defeat the whole battalion of Supermen and the entire army of Chuck Norrises just by lifting the little finger of his left hand. Luckily, in Darkness we do not need to deal much with his invincibility. Elvis Cole, a human-like character with all his faults and a good sense of humor, is clearly the protagonist.

Mr. Crais' writing reads more like screenplay for a movie rather than a full-fledged novel: the characters lack inner complexity and are shown through the prism of their single defining feature, but since we know this is not supposed to be a realistic narrative but rather one that implements a convention, the deficiency does not matter much. For example, in one of the first scenes two police officers visit Cole and Pike and the entire situation is a desperately silly macho game of trying to outcool and outmasculine each other. I do not believe readers can take any of this seriously so the scene has its comedic value (I tend to visualize macho characters doing their macho things almost naked, wearing only incontinence diapers).

Despite the laughable masculine clichés and screenplay-like feel this is quite a good novel. Mr. Crais paints a realistic thus grim portrait of city politics and scumbag city politicians. I also like the cynical thus truthful commentary on the role of attorneys in a criminal trial - the role that is not much about law and certainly not about justice. Many readers will probably like the major twist in the denouement. Overall a good read and a positive recommendation from me.

Three and a half stars.


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