Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2010
320 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
The Watchman put Joe Pike, Elvis Cole's strong, taciturn partner, front and center, and not only won Robert Crais new audiences but remarkable reviews. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel said "Robert Crais elevates crime fiction" and now with The First Rule he does it again.
The organized criminal gangs of the former Soviet Union are bound by what they call the thieves' code. The first rule is this: A thief must forsake his mother, father, brothers, and sisters. He must have no family-no wife, no children. We are his family. If any of the rules are broken, it is punishable by death.
Frank Meyer had the American dream-until the day a professional crew invaded his home and murdered everyone inside. The only thing out of the ordinary about Meyer was that- before the family and the business and the normal life-a younger Frank Meyer had worked as a professional mercenary, with a man named Joe Pike. The police think Meyer was hiding something very bad, but Pike does not. With the help of Cole, he sets out on a hunt of his own-an investigation that quickly entangles them both in a web of ancient grudges, blood ties, blackmail, vengeance, double crosses, and cutthroat criminality, and at the heart of it, an act so terrible even Pike and Cole have no way to measure it. Sometimes, the past is never dead. It's not even past.
'Pike emerges as an enigmatically appealing hero, whose lethal skills never overshadow his unflappable sense of morality." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Not a word is wasted in this suspenseful, hair-raising page-turner that also reveals the humanity of Pike, generally a stolid and silent character, as he mourns his friend's death." - Library Journal
"Righteous vengeance, a reckless pace, a stratospheric body count and just enough surprises to keep you turning the pages. The pleasures may be primitive, but they're genuine." - Kirkus Reviews
"Crais, whose last Joe Pike novel, The Watchman (2007), hit the New York Times best-seller list, likely has another on his hands here." - Booklist
This information about The First Rule was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Crais is the
author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. 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. 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.
Other literary influences include Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B.
Parker, and John Steinbeck.
After 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-...
... Full Biography
Link to Robert Crais's Website
Name Pronunciation
Robert Crais: rhymes with face
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
