Book Review: The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais

When you sit down to a Robert Crais novel, you are expecting to partake in the filet mignon of crime fiction. And when you close the back cover on his latest, “The Two Minute Rule,” you’ll be plenty satisfied. You might not even notice that it was a little undercooked.

Crais became a brand name among mystery readers through his inspired novels about private investigator Elvis Cole, who ferrets out L.A.-based whodunits—which sometimes detour into Hollywood, where Crais began as a television writer—with a combination of wink-at-you charm and less sociable skills honed as an Army Ranger in Vietnam. Crais has a penchant for writing about quasi-military operations such as manhunts and storming guarded hideouts. He does it exceedingly well, and with no off-putting machismo. At points in the Elvis Cole series, Crais paints in pointillist detail the terrible, throbbing rush of loading a weapon, bearing it to a confrontation, and exacting a price with it.

Wisecracking P.I.s find themselves amidst whizzing shell casings only so often, however, and Crais has broken free from the constraints of his Cole novels lately to write stand-alone thrillers about a bomb squad technician (“Demolition Angel”) and a hostage negotiator (“Hostage”). Unlike the Cole books, these have been light on comedy but positively soaked in adrenaline. The results on his book sales have been—ahem—explosive.

“The Two Minute Rule,” Crais’s third such effort, explores the world of bank robberies. The title comes from the professional thief’s maxim that after a robbery begins, you must get out within two minutes, the time it takes the cops to arrive. Max Holman failed to follow the rule and wound up with a ten-year stint in federal prison. The story opens as he is being released, eager to reconnect with his son Richie, who has cut Holman out of his life. But on his first day of freedom, Holman gets word that Richie, who grew up to be a policeman, has been gunned down along with three fellow officers.