The First Rule

The First Rule (2010) Robert Crais

Frank Meyer, his family, and their au pair are brutally murdered by a gang of burglars. Except that this looks far more like an execution than a burglary gone wrong, and Frank was not just ex-military but was also a mercenary (now retired) with Joe Pike. When Joe finds out that Frank and his family have been murdered, he is determined to solve the murder and get revenge upon the gang that killed Frank’s family.

This is another Joe Pike novel, and although Elvis Cole makes several appearances, this story is about Pike, and spends most of the story with him.

I’m still trying to decide how I feel about this story.

The Elvis Cole mysteries are hard boiled, but with the glib tone and dialog that made me love Robert B Parker‘s Spenser so much.

Joe is an entirely different story. Joe is neither glib nor witty, and speaks very little. Even though this book is from Pike’s POV, he is still a mystery, and in fact by the end of the story I’m even less sure about him that I was when we first met him.

Pike was a mercenary. He never tried to hide this any more than he chose to brag about it; it just is who he was, and suited his personality and world view exceedingly well. The problem is that the books have pushed that to the background, focusing on how he helped Elvis, and the clients their detective agency hires. (Much, I must say, the way Hawk’s life of crime is ignored by Spenser. Hawk is a bad guy, and we know it, but we don’t really see it.)

This story shows us why Joe was such a very good mercenary, why most of the cops (even the ones who didn’t know him when he was on the force) hate him, and why he chose to be co-owner of the detective agency with Elvis.

Joe Pike believes in right and wrong, and has no about qualms taking action when there has been a wrong. This is a problem where the legalities are concerned, because what is right (especially what is right to Joe) quite frequently has little or no bearing upon what is legal.

Elvis gets himself into bad situations where he has to take the life of another person in self-defense or in defense of another person. But it has always been in a life or death situation.

Joe Pike doesn’t necessarily see these niceties, and does what he believes needs to be done. In fact, multiple characters in this book are that way, and this is a hard thing for me to accept. It also leads me to wonder whether Joe is right and justified in his actions, and whether he truly does belong in a society of law and order.

That’s a surprising thing to spend time considering at the end of a best selling thriller.

If you have not read a mystery by Robert Crais before, I highly recommend this one, and although you can read it without having read the previous books in the series, I can’t decide if having done so changes the complexity of this story.

Regardless, it’s highly recommended.
Rating: 8/10

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