Requiem, 'Crais has stretched himself the way another Southern California writer-Ross Macdonald-always tried to do, to write a mystery novel with a solid literary base.' Booklist added, 'This is an extraordinary crime novel that should not be pigeonholed by genre. Larger and deeper in scope, Publishers Weekly wrote of L. In this new way of telling his stories, Crais combined the classic ‘first person’ narrative of the American detective novel with flashbacks, multiple story lines, multiple points-of-view, and literary elements to better illuminate his themes. Requiem, which was a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller and forever changed the way Crais conceived of and structured his novels. (See the WORKS section for additional titles.) Elvis Cole’s readership and fan base grew with each new book, then skyrocketed in 1999 upon the publication of L. It has since been selected as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.Ĭrais conceived of the novel as a stand-alone, but realized that-in Elvis Cole-he had created an ideal and powerful character through which to comment upon his life and times. The resulting novel, The Monkey’s Raincoat, won the Anthony and Macavity Awards and was nominated for the Edgar Award.

His first efforts proved unsuccessful, but upon the death of his father in 1985, Crais was inspired to create Elvis Cole, using elements of his own life as the basis of the story. In the mid-eighties, feeling constrained by the collaborative working requirements of Hollywood, Crais resigned from a lucrative position as a contract writer and television producer in order to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a novelist.

He received an Emmy nomination for his work on Hill Street Blues, but is most proud of his 4-hour NBC miniseries, Cross of Fire, which the New York Times declared: 'A searing and powerful documentation of the Ku Klux Klan’s rise to national prominence in the 20s.' Parker, and John Steinbeck.Īfter years of amateur film-making and writing short fiction, he journeyed to Hollywood in 1976 where he quickly found work writing scripts for such major television series as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, and Miami Vice, as well as numerous series pilots and Movies-of-the-Week for the major networks. Other literary influences include Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. He purchased a secondhand paperback of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister when he was fifteen, which inspired his lifelong love of writing, Los Angeles, and the literature of crime fiction. A native of Louisiana, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a blue collar family of oil refinery workers and police officers. Robert Crais is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels.

The Sentry by Robert Crais