Robert Crais has been writing detective fiction at the top of the publishing pyramid for some time. His latest Elvis Cole novel, The Promise, is one of his best. Its pleasures are not only those of a well-crafted crime story. It also touches the heart in surprising ways.

I don’t know if author Crais picked the trick up from Dean Koontz, but he takes advantage of the opportunities offered by using a dog in a story. He did this first with his novel Suspect, which I reviewed here, and the same characters, K9 Officer Scott James and his dog Maggie, reappear here and help out. Maybe not everyone feels the way I do, but for me, working in a few scenes from a dog’s point of view raises the poignancy level of a book about 300%.

On top of that, there’s a human moment of what I can only call grace in the book that was deeply moving, and it came from a character from whom I didn’t expect it.

The plot? Oh yes, Elvis Cole is hired by a woman to find a co-worker who has disappeared. The missing woman recently lost her only son, a journalist, in a suicide bombing in North Africa. She’s gone off the radar and seems to be consorting with bad people. The investigation reveals a bundle of tangled threads and dissimulations. Elvis is assisted by his scary friend Joe Pike, and Joe’s scary mercenary friend Jon Stone.

A really good book. It’ll move you. Cautions for the usual.