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Zusatztext “[Robert Crais] should be mentioned in the same breath as Robert B. Parker! Tony Hillerman! Sue Grafton! and James Lee Burke.” – Houston Chronicle “After Chandler we had James M. Cain! and after Cain there was Ross MacDonald! and currently we have Robert Crais.” – Los Angeles Times Book Review “Hip! funny and thought-provoking.” – Booklist A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Informationen zum Autor ROBERT CRAIS is the author of many novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Last Detective , Hostage , and L.A. Requiem . Learn more about his work at www.robertcrais.com. Klappentext Prominent restaurateur Teddy Martin is facing charges in his wife's brutal murder. But he's not going down without spending a bundle of cash on his defense. So his hotshot attorney hires P.I. Elvis Cole to find proof that Detective Angela Rossi tampered with the evidence. Rossi needs a way back to the fast track after falling hard during an internal investigation five years ago. But Cole needs to know if she's desperate enough to falsify the case against Martin in order to secure her own position. As Cole and his partner Joe Pike work their way through a tangle of witnesses and an even greater tangle of media, they begin to suspect that it's not the police who are behind the setup.1 Jonathan Green came to my office on a hazy June morning with an entourage of three attorneys, a videographer, and an intense young woman lugging eight hundred pounds of sound recording equipment. The videographer shoved past the attorneys and swung his camera around my office, saying, “This is just what we need, Jonathan! It’s real, it’s colorful, it’s L.A.!” He aimed his camera at me past the Mickey Mouse phone and began taping. “Pretend I’m not here.” I frowned at him, and he waved toward the lawyers. “Don’t look at me. At them. Look at them.” I looked at them. “What is this?” I was expecting Green and an attorney named Elliot Truly, but not the others. Truly had arranged the meeting. A man in his mid-forties wearing an immaculately tailored blue Armani suit said, “Mr. Cole? I’m Elliot Truly. This is Jonathan Green. Thanks for seeing us.” I shook hands with Truly first, then Green. Green looked exactly the way he had the two times I’d seen him on 60 Minutes, once when he defended an abortion rights activist accused of murder in Texas and once when he defended a wealthy textile manufacturer accused of murder in Iowa. The Texas case was popular and the Iowa case wasn’t, but both were victories for the defense. The videographer scrambled backward across the office to fit us into his frame, the woman with the sound gear hustling to stay behind the camera as they captured the moment of our first meeting. Armstrong steps onto the moon; the Arabs and the Israelis sign a peace accord; Jonathan Green meets the private detective. The woman with the sound equipment bumped into my desk and the videographer slammed against the file cabinet. The little figures of Jiminy Cricket on the cabinet fell over and the framed photo of Lucy Chenier tottered. I frowned at him again. “Be careful.” The videographer waved some more. “Don’t look at me! Not at me! You’ll ruin the shot!” I said, “If you break anything, I’ll ruin more than the shot.” Green seemed embarrassed. “This is tiresome, Elliot. We have business here, and I’m afraid we’re making a bad impression on Mr. Cole.” Truly touched my arm, trying to mitigate the bad impression. “They’re from Inside News. They’re doing a six-part documentary on Jonathan’s involvement in the case.” The woman with the sound equipment nodded. “The inner workings of the Big Green Defense Machine.” I said, “Big Green Defense Machine?” The videographer stopped taping and looked me up and down as if he fou...
