Book Review: Racing The Light

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Oct 28, 2022

Josh Shoe’s friend Skyler Lawless is a porn star and artist holding highly combustible evidence on a silver flash drive.  She gives it to Josh, a geeky young man with an up-and-coming podcast and an unusually worried mother. 

When a very odd, eccentric older woman — Adele Schumacher (Josh’s mom) — enters Private Detective Elvis Cole’s office with two bodyguards and a bag of cash, Racing The Light immediately grabs the reader and never lets go. 

Adele is convinced Josh is missing and – along with her equally peculiar ex-husband – convinces Cole to take the job despite her warnings of bizarre conspiracies and her son being a prisoner in a secret government facility 

Cole quickly learns he’s not the only person hunting for Josh, and as the danger escalates, he enlists the help of series fixtures Joe Pike and Jon Stone, my two favorite characters.  That said, in Racing The Light, Crais focuses significant attention on new characters with remarkably satisfying results. 

Josh’s next-door neighbor, Leon Karsey, is a scene stealer who helps Cole piece the case together, and his use of nicknames for other characters in the book are worth the read alone.  The ability to write real, vivid people like Karsey are one of the many reasons Crais is in a class by himself.  Josh and his friends Ryan and Skylar all evoke great empathy from the reader, and that’s what makes Racing The Light (and all of Crais’s work) so compelling. 

Crais has the unique ability of getting the reader emotionally invested in his characters, especially in Racing The Light.  We’ve all known people like Josh Shoe, his friend Ryan, and have probably had a neighbor or relative like Leon Karsey.  Crais understands this, so the reader is drawn in and feels as if they are embedded in the story. 

Crais is as devoted to his readers as Elvis Cole is to his clients, and Racing The Light is evidence that both are the greatest at their chosen professions. 

Available at Bookstores and on Amazon

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Broadway at The Russian Tea Room is a unique program, with a host who’s been attending a wide range of productions for more than 50 years.  We reach a sizable audience across the globe, and we are not here to review or critique, but rather to promote and support the arts.

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