One major theme in The Watchman has to do with “staying groovy.” No, not the 1970's meaning of “cool” or “laid back” or doing drugs. “You don’t want to hide you want to get them before they get us. Eventually, Larkin realizes that Pike isn’t going to just protect her he intends to track down whomever is after her. Pike sums up the situation succinctly: “When you weren’t moving you were nothing but someone’s target.” He doesn’t know whom he can trust, or if even Pitman, a member of Homeland Security, might be the person leaking Larkin’s location to Meesh. Joe Pike, a man of action and few words, must stay alive and hunt down the man he believes to be behind the money laundering for the Ecuadorian drug cartel: Alex Meesh.

The people out to assassinate or kidnap her are very persistent and have more than a hundred million reasons in cold hard cash to stay hot on her trail.

Marshals cannot guarantee Larkin’s safety. This is when Bud Flynn, Pike’s old partner on the police force, suggests that he would be perfect for the job of keeping Larkin alive.Įven being guarded at safe houses by U.S. Set to testify in court, identify the man and send him to jail, she is targeted for assassination. Identified the passenger who got out of the Mercedes as someone laundering money for an Ecuadorian drug cartel. She wrote down the license plate number, called 911, and Larkin Barkley collided with a Mercedes on her way home early one morning and saw a man stagger away from the accident before the car, owned by the real estate magnate King family, drove away. When Jon Stone, a man to whom ex-cop and ex-mercenary Joe Pike owes a favor, hits Pike up to serve as a bodyguard for the rich, beautiful daughter of a hotel and real estate tycoon, he takes the job even though it’s a freebie. Elvis Cole usually takes center stage in Crais’s books this time, his partner in the Elvis Cole Detective Agency, Joe Pike, is the main character in an engrossing, page-turning tale of real estate heiresses, drug cartels, money laundering and murder. The Watchman by Robert Crais is his greatest edge-of-your-seat thriller to date. The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel- book review

The watchman crais