Robert Crais, author of the Edgar Award-nominated L.A Requiem is a master of the intelligent and complex suspense novel. In Demolition Angel he delves into the life-on-the-edge world of the Los Angeles bomb squad. Three years ago Carol Starkey was one of L.A.’s best bomb squad technicians. Then a freak accident while disarming a bomb left her scarred inside and out. Now a Detective-2 with the LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section, she is struggling to rebuild her shattered world. When an explosion claims the life of a technician who was a colleague and friend, Carol is assigned to head up the investigation. With the help of an ATF agent, she discovers that a brilliant madman is designing bombs intended to kill the people whose job it is to disarm them. But as they begin their chase of the man known as Mr. Red, Carol finds that nothing about the case is as it appears. All she knows for certain is that she is the next target. With finely drawn characters and non-stop suspense, Demolition Angel is an unforgettable experience. Paul Hecht deftly conveys both Carol’s determination and fear as she fights to reclaim her life.

“Crais is at the top of his game, and Demolition Angel delivers the goods. With a bang. . . . It’s Silence of the Lambs meets Speed. . . . Crais knows how to press all the right buttons in keeping the story line taut and the action, well, explosive.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Carol Starkey is struggling to pick up the pieces of her former life as L.A.’s finest bomb squad technician. Fueled with liberal doses of alcohol and Tagamet, she’s doing time as a Detective-2 with LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section. Three years have passed since the event that still haunts her: a detonation that killed her partner and lover, scarred her body and soul, and ended her career as a bomb tech.

When a seemingly innocuous bomb call explodes into a charred murder scene, Carol catches the case and embarks on an investigation of a series of explosions that reveal chilling intentions. The bombs are designed expressly to kill bomb technicians. Now, as the one tech who survived the deadliest of blasts, Carol is in for the most perilous fight of her life. . . .

Praise for Demolition Angel

“Terrific . . . explosive . . . [a] high powered thrill ride.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Gripping . . . Crais piles on plot twists . . . gathering the separate threads at the end and igniting them like a string of fireworks.”—People

“A powerful, self-contained novel of suspense that has the compactness, velocity, and effectiveness of a well-aimed bullet . . . This is a thriller that works on every level, a pivotal work from a crime novelist operating at the top of his game.”—Los Angeles Times

“Fascinating and frighteningly believable . . . Starkey is one of the toughest characters to grace the crowded field of thriller books in a long time.”—USA Today

“A flammable techno-thriller with the kind of force that knocks out windows.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Packs an explosive punch. Though the pace of the book moves like a quick-burning fuse, Crais still takes the time in Demolition Angel to sketch out some memorable characters: Starkey, haunted and hollow-eyed, covering up her pain with a Bogart-tough demeanor; and John Michael Fowles (aka Mr. Red), a sociopath who gets all sorts of information from the Internet without breaking a sweat. . . . Crais keeps things wound so tight that readers will be getting paper cuts in their rush to finish this one.”—The Denver Post

Edgar Award nominee Robert Crais’ L.A. Requiem is a gritty, harrowing look into the minds of a serial killer and the men determined to stop him. Elvis Cole and former cop Joe Pike have been partners in a detective agency for 12 years. After an ex-girlfriend of Pike’s disappears, the girl’s father asks them to help the police with the search. When the missing persons case turns into a hunt for a killer who has been stalking victims in Los Angeles, Cole and Pike find themselves battling both a hostile police department and a madman. Ron McLarty’s masterful narration subtly builds a sense of Cole’s and Pike’s growing desperation to find some link between the victims as the body count continues to grow.

“Terrific entertainment . . . A powerful portrait of Los Angeles in our time: swift, colorful, gripping, a real knockout.”—Dean Koontz

The day starts like any other in L.A. The sun burns hot as the Santa Ana winds blow ash from mountain fires to coat the glittering city. But for private investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, is dead, brutally murdered with a gun shot to the head.

Now Karen’s powerful father calls on Pike (a former cop) and his partner, Elvis Cole, to keep an eye on the LAPD as they search for his daughter’s killer–because in the luminous City of Angels, everyone has secrets, and even the mighty blue have something to hide. But what starts as a little procedural hand-holding turns into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. For a dark web of conspiracy threatens to destroy Pike and Cole’s twelve-year friendship—if not their lives. And L.A. just might be singing their dirge.

Praise for L.A. Requiem

“One of the best crime novels I’ve ever read. Absolutely terrific!”—David Baldacci

“Darker, denser, deeper, and more satisfying than anything he’s written before.”—The Denver Post

“[A] whodunit with salsa and soul . . . [Crais] keeps his plot pounding along.”—People