Book ~ "The Promise" (2015) Robert Crais

From Goodreads ~ Loyalty, commitment, and the fight for justice have always driven Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. If they make a promise, they keep it. Even if it could get them killed.

When Elvis Cole is secretly hired to find a grief-stricken mother, he’s led to an ordinary house on a rainy night in Echo Park. Only the house isn’t ordinary, and the people hiding inside are a desperate fugitive and a murderous criminal with his own dangerous secrets. 

As helicopters swirl overhead, Scott and Maggie track the fugitive to this same house, coming face-to-face with Mr. Rollins, a killer who leaves behind a brutally murdered body and enough explosives to destroy the neighborhood. Scott is now the only person who can identify him but Mr. Rollins has a rule: Never leave a witness alive.

For all of them, the night is only beginning.

Sworn to secrecy by his client, Elvis finds himself targeted by the police even as Mr. Rollins targets Maggie and Scott. As Mr. Rollins closes in for the kill, Elvis and Joe join forces with Scott and Maggie to follow a trail of lies where no one is who they claim - and the very woman they promised to save might get them all killed. 

Elvis Cole is a private detective and he is hired to find a woman named Amy.  Meryl, her friend and colleague, said she stole over $400,000 before she disappeared.  Meryl doesn't want the company to know so wants Elvis to quietly find Amy so she can make things right again.  The only lead Meryl can give Elvis is that a friend of Amy's late son will probably know what's going on with Amy.   When Elvis goes to the last known address of the friend, he gets caught up in a murder along with a houseful of explosives ... and the cops figure he's involved somehow.  Elvis had promised Meryl he wouldn't disclose that he's working on a case and that makes him look even more suspicious.

Scott is a cop in the K-9 unit and Maggie is his dog (they were the focus of Crais' 2013 novel Suspect, which I enjoyed).  They are also at the scene and Scott gets a look at the killer's face, which then prompts the killer to go after Scott.  Elvis and Scott eventually work together to find Amy, find the killer before he finds Scott and clear Elvis' name.

I discovered the Elvis Cole series in the 1990s.  What attracted me to it was that Elvis was funny and tried to be charming ... the books were a fun read.  It seems like Crais has changed his writing style over the years and unfortunately so has Elvis.  There were bits of humour here and there but overall I found this book really heavy and serious.  The subject matter was heavy and I found the plot a bit convoluted.  When one of the bad guys was revealed, I kinda went "seriously?!"

The book is written from many perspectives.  It's first person when it's Elvis' voice and third person when it's Scott's, Maggie's, the killer's, etc. ... the beginning of the chapters are labelled so you know. There were A LOT of characters and I  had a hard time keeping them straight sometimes.  As a head's up, there is some swearing in this book.