The Monkey’s Raincoat

The Monkey’s Raincoat (1987) Robert Crais

I read this series while I was recovering from my broken ankle, so I had very little memory of this book. In fact, I was 87% through the book before I came across a scene and thought “I remember that!”

Those were definitely some very good drugs I was taking.

So it’s almost like reading it for the first time.

The book was published in 1987. Which is why we have this:

“Did you go to college for that?”

“University of Southeast Asia. Two-year program.”

“Vietnam?”

“Unh-huh.”

Outside, another police helicopter flew very low up the canyon and over the house. When I was little we lived near an air base and I was terrified that the airplanes and helicopters would scare away Santa Claus. Years later, in Vietnam, I grew to like the sound. It meant someone was coming to save me.

Payphones also make a repeated appearance, just so you know.

It doesn’t bother me, because the technology is the only thing that really feels dated. But I still like it; technology changed things significantly, but technology has been doing that for centuries: read anything set in the Napoleonic era and guns are unreliable. Victorian era, suddenly we have telegraphs.

I vaguely remember thinking that early Elvis Cole felt a good deal like Spenser, not just in the witty banter, but in the love of food and descriptions of cooking. And in the recognition that the crime stories of the past weren’t especially reality based.

On TV, a guy gets knifed or shot and he’s dead. In the world, dying takes a while and it smells bad.

I don’t think most people need to be told that anymore.

It still feels a bit like Spenser, but it’s also it’s own thing, and I did enjoy it–even if I remembered almost none of it.
Rating: 7.5/10

Published by Bantam

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