61 books like Elvis Cole and Joe Pike

As I indicated earlier, I am a Lee Child superfan. I’ve read all his original books. A thick (and expensive) biography. A long essay he wrote on heroism. All his short stories. You get the idea. So it was fun to re-read this book, his first.

It wasn’t what I remembered, that’s for sure! Yes, the action scenes are vivid and instructive (Child writes about the utility of a headbutt versus the risk of breaking your hand with a punch), and the action is what I remember most. But there’s more to this book than fights: there’s a major romance, which the author writes with gusto and in detail, heavy on feelings, not on private parts; the prose is better than solid, with imagery that really makes it come alive; and the story is plausible and tightly woven, with plenty of surprises. 

I’ve been a fan of Crais’s Elvis & Joe series for years, so I was delighted to see that he brought a dog into a new series as a main character. Another book with traumatized characters, this one demonstrates the redemptive power of canine love.

LAPD officer Scott James is recovering from an assault in which his partner was killed, and he almost lost his life. He’s barely fit to return to duty until he’s paired with his new partner Maggie, a bomb-sniffing German shepherd that lost her handler in Afghanistan. Their partnership offers healing for both, and I love this book and A Borrowing of Bones because they reflect redemption.

This book was short-listed for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and named the Dogwise Book of the Year. It features ex-soldier Mercy Carr and retired military K-9 Elvis, who were both traumatized when Mercy’s fiancé—also Elvis’s handler—was killed on their last deployment.

Paula Munier is another author with a deep connection to the natural world. She is studying for a naturalist certificate in her home state of Vermont, and the books are full of great details.

This is somewhat of an underground, little-known novel that I came across deep in the midst of a rural second-hand bookshop a few years back.

Set in 1958, the novel follows its deputy sheriff protagonist on a journey from the mid-west to Los Angeles via the famous Route 66. It has elements of noir, suspense, romance, adventure, and a good-guy vs mafia dynamic, all while tipping its hat to the American Road genre.

As a reader, you feel like you’re just another guy along for the ride, passing through state lines, watching the story unfold.  

Wrecked is the third book in Joe Ide’s Isaiah Quintabe series, but really any one of the six books (so far) could have made this list.

Isaiah, IQ to those who call on his services, is an East Long Beach native. He uses his Sherlockian intelligence to solve crimes in his neighborhood that the LAPD won’t touch. He gets paid whatever his clients can afford, sometimes a freshly baked pie, sometimes money, usually nothing.

But, because IQ frequently finds himself out of his depth with local gangsters, and in Wrecked’s case, a dangerous paramilitary organization, he has found an accidental sidekick in the ex-drug-dealing, whip-smart, streetwise Dodson.

Together, these two wannabe Holmes and Watson, Forrest Gump their way through a series of poignant, funny, but very rewarding adventures. 

I was shocked when I realized S.A. Lelchuck was male.

Nikki Griffin, a hardnosed San Francisco detective slash bookstore owner, is such a dynamic, fleshed-out female character I just assumed she’d been penned by a woman. Well, you know what they say about assuming. Nikki is a kick butt, take no prisoner’s PI with an agenda.

Like the PIs in the books above, she veers onto the wrong side of the tracks often. Actually, she jumps over them and runs along the wrong side of the tracks while brandishing brass knuckles and a baton.

Even when she’s breaking the law, you’re kinda okay with it because, well, Lelchuck’s bad guys are really bad. 

If you’ve read this far, you know that I like my PIs off-beat, maybe even a little bit broken.

And Roxanne Weary, the Columbus, Ohio PI, is the definition of a hot mess. She’s a borderline alcoholic with a tendency toward sleeping with the absolute wrong people. Yet, you can’t help but feel for her. She’s also pretty funny.

It’s hard to find the sweet spot between humor and seriousness in a suspenseful plot but Lepionka manages to thread this needle very nicely. 

Fair warning: I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area so I’m not impartial here, but I love this book.

Pelecanos really just dropped me into the D.C. of my youth. The plotting here is great as is the characterization. Every character feels like a real person that you might meet in a bar or some seedy back room.

The suspense, the tension, the character’s individual motivations for stepping into the quagmire Pelecanos puts them in, is spot on. And it all leads up to an ending that is both shocking and, in hindsight, inevitable. 

This book takes place in the windy city of Chicago and Clark is adept at making you feel like you are right there in the midst of the fast-paced, gritty city as you read.

The plotting helps by kicking off with a bang – a priest and a gang member found dead in church. Questions abound. But what really kept me turning the pages of this book (or technically swiping since I read it on my Kindle) was Cass Raines, retired cop turned PI.

Her last case on the police force left her reeling and she struggling to deal with the aftermath.

It’s Cass that makes this book stand out amongst other PI novels, you care about what she’s going through, about this new trauma that has been introduced into her life, and that through it all she’s still working to get justice for people that are often overlooked and… show more.

Windsor Horne Lockwood III, otherwise known as Win, is Myron Bolitar’s psychotic sidekick in Coben’s long-running series. Win is pure antihero.

He and Myron have been best friends since they roomed together at college. Win is from ‘old money’ and doesn’t try to hide it, he runs Lock-Horne Investments & Security, and is an expert in martial arts and weapons. Other than Myron and Myron’s business partner, Esperanza, and maybe half a dozen others, he has no emotional attachment to humans.

Despite his psychopathy, Win is a very funny character, and his loyalty to his few friends is absolute. Win is the second book on the list in which the sidekick has gotten a book all to themselves and it was a joy to read.