Robert Crais is the best selling author of the Elvis Cole detective series of novels. Crais created Elvis Cole after his father died in 1985. The Monkey’s Raincoat was the first novel that Elvis Cole appeared in. Crais never intended Cole to be a reoccurring character in subsequent novels. However, Cole turned out to be such a strong character, he was the perfect vehicle for Crais to comment on the currents events in the world.
Robert Crais used elements of his own life as the basis for The Monkey’s Raincoat. This novel won the 1988 Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the 1988 Mystery Readers International Macavity Award for Best Paperback Original. Since that time, it has also been named as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. After the amazing success of his first Elvis Cole novel, Crais continued on with eleven more Elvis Cole novels and three additional novels. With each new novel, Crais’ readership and popularity has grown. In 1999, Crais published L.A. Requiem which was listed on both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times bestseller lists.
Crais was born in Louisiana in a blue collar family. He cites Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister as the book that inspired his life-long love of writing, his love for Los Angeles, and his interest in the crime detective mystery area. In 1976 he moved to Hollywood and began a very successful career as a television script writer. He wrote episodes for Cagney and Lacy, Miami Vice, and Hill Street Blues. However, feeling confined by the rigid structure of writing for television, Crais left script writing in the mid-1980s to pursue his dream of becoming a successful novelist.
