Life looks good for wise-cracking Elvis Cole. His girlfriend Lucy has moved to Los Angeles to be with him. Then he gets a call from Joe Pike, his stoic partner in the detective agency. With uncharacteristic emotion, Joe asks Elvis to meet him at the home of his friend Frank Garcia. Garcia’s daughter is missing. Thirty-two year old Karen went for a jog, and hasn’t been seen since.

Elvis meets Garcia, a self-made tortilla tycoon. Joe reveals that he once wanted to marry Karen.

Elvis and Joe retrace Karen’s jogging route and question possible witnesses. They search Karen’s apartment where they are ambushed by LAPD. The cops grudgingly confirm that Karen’s murdered body has been found.

The cops seethe with hostility towards ex-cop Joe. Apparently Joe once shot his own partner under mysterious circumstances. Now they won’t even interact with Elvis if Joe present. To make things worse, Karen’s father uses his political influence to force the cops to include Elvis in the murder investigation.

Elvis finds himself tagging along after the cops, trying to direct the investigation. The lead detective Krantz harasses Elvis at every step. He turns the others against Elvis and feeds him misleading information. Krantz also makes Elvis the responsibility of the one woman detective Samantha Dolan. To his chagrin, Dolan’s contempt towards him starts warming into a grudging attraction. He enjoys her tough sense of humor, but tries hard to remain true to his impatient girlfriend Lucy.

Joe pursues his own leads. This includes cultivating an LAPD informer in John Chen, a nerdy forensics analyst. Chen and Joe meet by chance at the crime scene. Once Chen gets over Joe’s intimidating demeanor, he appreciates the tips on spotting hard-to-find clues.

Then things take a bizarre turn: witnesses describe a suspect resembling Joe! Plus Karen’s murder is one in a series of serial-killings. Joe’s options start narrowing towards prison or death. His only chance lies in examining the most tragic event of his former career as a cop: when he shot his partner. The villain somehow forms a connection between the long-ago shooting, and Karen’s murder. Who is the villain?

L.A. Requiem is a complex and fast-paced mystery. Number 8 in the Elvis Cole series, it sheds light on the mysterious past of Joe Pike. It won a Dilys Award and nominations for the Edgar, the Anthony, and the Shamus Awards. You can find L.A. Requiem on Amazon through this link: L.A. Requiem