The two minute rule

Robert Crais

Book - 2006

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FICTION/Crais, Robert
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Subjects
Published
New York : Simon & Schuster [2006]
Language
English
Main Author
Robert Crais (-)
Physical Description
325 pages
ISBN
9780743281614
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Max Holman is a career criminal. At least he was until he violated the two-minute rule, bank robbery's inviolable maxim. When he stayed in the bank four minutes, he was arrested by FBI agent Katherine Pollard. The intervening decade hasn't been kind to either of them. Holman spent it in jail; Pollard quit the FBI to raise her kids and then lost her husband to his secretary and death, in that order. The day Holman is paroled from prison he learns that his son, Richie, an LAPD officer, was gunned down. The investigating officers assure Holman that Richie's killer acted alone and then committed suicide. Something doesn't feel right, and Holman turns to Pollard, the only cop he ever trusted. She is suffocating in a cash-poor widow's hell and reluctantly begins to help Holman investigate. The unlikely allies butt up against a seemingly impenetrable wall of corruption and soon find many of their theories discredited. In general, Crais' Elvis Cole novels are superior to his stand-alone thrillers, but this is his best effort yet in the latter category. Pollard and Holman are carefully drawn, flawed, but empathetic characters. One of Crais' previous thrillers, Hostage (2001), resurfaced as a movie starring Bruce Willis. This might work for Willis, too, possibly with Sandra Bullock as Pollard. --Wes Lukowsky Copyright 2005 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Two minutes, in and out, that's the rule for robbing banks in this page-turning action ride around L.A. from bestseller Crais (Hostage). Break that rule, and you can end up like Marchenko and Parsons, dying in a violent shoot-out on the streets, the fortune from their string of heists deeply hidden. Max Holman certainly knows the time limit better than most. Dubbed the "hero bandit" by the press, he got caught during a robbery after he stopped to perform CPR on a bank customer who had a heart attack. About to leave prison on parole, the 48-year-old Max hopes he can establish contact with the son he never really knew, now a cop. When Max's son is murdered, suspected of being in a ring of dirty cops seeking the Marchenko and Parsons loot, Max needs to know the truth. The only person he figures can help him is Katherine Pollard, the fed who nabbed him, who's now ex-FBI and a struggling single mom. The perfect odd couple, they keep this novel personal and real as it builds to an exciting twist on the bank-robbing rule. 200,000 first printing; 15-city author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Mad Max: Just as he's released from prison, the police officer son he's desperate to reconcile with is killed, and Max doesn't believe the gang leader blamed by the LAPD is responsible. With a 15-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review

Starred Review. As Max Holman is being released from jail following a term for bank robbery, his estranged son, a Los Angeles police officer, is murdered along with three other cops in the dry bed of the Los Angeles River. The two on-duty and two off-duty officers were apparently killed by someone they knew while sharing a couple of early morning beers. Max wants the killer; he wants revenge at the risk of his job, his parole, even his life--it's personal. This fast-paced, intense murder mystery is very much about impressions and assumptions: the chasms among various cultures (criminal, law enforcement, ex-con), relationships (societal, family, cultural), and economic categories that conspire to dictate how our pasts prejudice our understanding of the world and also prejudice how the world understands us. Crais offers some very interesting characters, a very solid story with fascinating plot twists, and lots of interesting information about bank robberies, law enforcement, and the Los Angeles area. Well produced and well read with feeling and expertise by Christopher Graybill. Very highly recommended for adult collections.-- Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A bank robber turns detective to avenge the son who's always hated him, in this turbocharged suspenser from Crais (The Forgotten Man, 2005, etc.). The day Max Holman finally jumps through the last hoop and goes free after ten years as a guest of the state, he learns that his son Richard has been gunned down, along with three LAPD colleagues. The four cops were executed while drinking under the Fourth Street bridge, he's told; the shooter was Warren Juarez, who had a grudge against the sergeant who'd arrested his brother, and the case is closed when Juarez obligingly commits suicide. Max doesn't buy a word of it. He doesn't think Juarez killed three cops more than he needed to, and he doesn't think anybody could've gotten the drop on the four officers unless they knew and trusted him. With no family or friends to turn to, Max calls Katherine Pollard, the FBI agent who considered him a hero of sorts when she sent him up ten years ago, not knowing she's left the Agency and feels as much an outsider as he does. For such an awkward pair--he's determined to prove that Richie wasn't the dirty cop he seemed to be; she feels she owes him something even though she's warned by everyone around her just how toxic their association is--they click surprisingly well as a team, and soon they've learned enough about a missing $15 million jackpot to get themselves into serious trouble. Dead cops, dirty cops, an unlikely romance between a law enforcement officer and a tarnished character in the City of Angels--it all sounds like L.A. Confidential, and you can be sure that Crais is aiming for the same big-ticket movie sale with a fast-moving case that reads like a 300-page treatment. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter One "You're not too old. Forty-six isn't old, these days. You got a world of time to make a life for yourself." Holman didn't answer. He was trying to decide how best to pack. Everything he owned was spread out on the bed, all neatly folded: four white T-shirts, three Hanes briefs, four pairs of white socks, two short-sleeved shirts (one beige, one plaid), one pair of khaki pants, plus the clothes he had been wearing when he was arrested for bank robbery ten years, three months, and four days ago. "Max, you listening?" "I gotta get this stuff packed. Lemme ask you something -- you think I should keep my old stuff, from before? I don't know as I'll ever get into those pants." Wally Figg, who ran the Community Correctional Center, which was kind of a halfway house for federal prisoners, stepped forward to eye the pants. He picked them up and held them next to Holman. The cream-colored slacks still bore scuff marks from when the police had wrestled Holman to the floor in the First United California Bank ten years plus three months ago. Wally admired the material. "That's a nice cut, man. What is it, Italian?" "Armani." Wally nodded, impressed. "I'd keep'm, I was you. Be a shame to lose something this nice." "I got four inches more in the waist now than back then." In the day, Holman had lived large. He stole cars, hijacked trucks, and robbed banks. Fat with fast cash, he hoovered up crystal meth for breakfast and Maker's Mark for lunch, so jittery from dope and hung over from booze he rarely bothered to eat. He had gained weight in prison. Wally refolded the pants. "Was me, I'd keep'm. You'll get yourself in shape again. Give yourself something to shoot for, gettin' back in these pants." Holman tossed them to Wally. Wally was smaller. "Better to leave the past behind." Wally admired the slacks, then looked sadly at Holman. "You know I can't. We can't accept anything from the residents. I'll pass'm along to one of the other guys, you want. Or give'm to Goodwill." "Whatever." "You got a preference, who I should give'm to?" "No, whoever." "Okay. Sure." Holman went back to staring at his clothes. His suitcase was an Albertsons grocery bag. Technically, Max Holman was still incarcerated, but in another hour he would be a free man. You finish a federal stretch, they don't just cross off the last X and cut you loose; being released from federal custody happened in stages. They started you off with six months in an Intensive Confinement Center where you got field trips into the outside world, behavioral counseling, additional drug counseling if you needed it, that kind of thing, after which you graduated to a Community Correctional Center where they let you live and work in a community with real live civilians. In the final stages of his release program, Holman had spent the past three months at the CCC in Venice, California, a beach community sandwiched between Santa Monica and Marina del Rey, preparing himself for his release. As of today, Holman would be released from full-time federal custody into what was known as supervised release -- he would be a free man for the first time in ten years. Wally said, "Well, okay, I'm gonna go get the papers together. I'm proud of you, Max. This is a big day. I'm really happy for you." Holman layered his clothes in the bag. With the help of his Bureau of Prisons release supervisor, Gail Manelli, he had secured a room in a resident motel and a job; the room would cost sixty dollars a week, the job would pay a hundred seventy-two fifty after taxes. A big day. Wally clapped him on the back. "I'll be in the office whenever you're ready to go. Hey, you know what I did, kind of a going-away present?" Holman glanced at him. "What?" Wally slipped a business card from his pocket and gave it to Holman. The card showed a picture of an antique timepiece. Salvadore Jimenez, repairs, fine watches bought and sold, Culver City, California . Wally explained as Holman read the card. "My wife's cousin has this little place. He fixes watches. I figured maybe you havin' a job and all, you'd want to get your old man's watch fixed. You want to see Sally, you lemme know, I'll make sure he gives you a price." Holman slipped the card into his pocket. He wore a cheap Timex with an expandable band that hadn't worked in twenty years. In the day, Holman had worn an eighteen-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe he stole from a car fence named Oscar Reyes. Reyes had tried to short him on a stolen Carrera, so Holman had choked the sonofabitch until he passed out. But that was then. Now, Holman wore the Timex even though its hands were frozen. The Timex had belonged to his father. "Thanks, Wally, thanks a lot. I was going to do that." "A watch that don't keep time ain't much good to you." "I have something in mind for it, so this will help." "You let me know. I'll make sure he gives you a price." "Sure. Thanks. Let me get packed up here, okay?" Wally left as Holman returned to his packing. He had the clothes, three hundred twelve dollars that he had earned during his incarceration, and his father's watch. He did not have a car or a driver's license or friends or family to pick him up upon his release. Wally was going to give him a ride to his motel. After that, Holman would be on his own with the Los Angeles public transportation system and a watch that didn't work. Holman went to his bureau for the picture of his son. Richie's picture was the first thing he had put in the room here at the CCC, and it would be the last thing he packed when he left. It showed his son at the age of eight, a gap-toothed kid with a buzz cut, dark skin, and serious eyes; his child's body already thickening with Holman's neck and shoulders. The last time Holman actually saw the boy was his son's twelfth birthday, Holman flush with cash from flipping two stolen Corvettes in San Diego, showing up blind drunk a day too late, the boy's mother, Donna, taking the two thousand he offered too little too late by way of the child support he never paid and on which he was always behind. Donna had sent him the old picture during his second year of incarceration, a guilty spasm because she wouldn't bring the boy to visit Holman in prison, wouldn't let the boy speak to Holman on the phone, and wouldn't pass on Holman's letters, such as they were, however few and far between, keeping the boy out of Holman's life. Holman no longer blamed her for that. She had done all right by the boy with no help from him. His son had made something of himself, and Holman was goddamned proud of that. Holman placed the picture flat into the bag, then covered it with the remaining clothes to keep it safe. He glanced around the room. It didn't look so very different than it had an hour ago before he started. He said, "Well, I guess that's it." He told himself to leave, but didn't. He sat on the side of the bed instead. It was a big day, but the weight of it left him feeling heavy. He was going to get settled in his new room, check in with his release supervisor, then try to find Donna. It had been two years since her last note, not that she had ever written all that much anyway, but the five letters he had written to her since had all been returned, no longer at this address. Holman figured she had gotten married, and the new guy probably didn't want her convicted-felon boyfriend messing in their life. Holman didn't blame her for that, either. They had never married, but they did have the boy together and that had to be worth something even if she hated him. Holman wanted to apologize and let her know he had changed. If she had a new life, he wanted to wish her well with it, then get on with his. Eight or nine years ago when he thought about this day he saw himself running out the goddamned door, but now he just sat on the bed. Holman was still sitting when Wally came back. "Max?" Wally stood in the door like he was scared to come in. His face was pale and he kept wetting his lips. Holman said, "What's wrong? Wally, you having a heart attack, what?" Wally closed the door. He glanced at a little notepad like something was on it he didn't have right. He was visibly shaken. "Wally, what?" "You have a son, right? Richie?" "Yeah, that's right." "What's his full name?" "Richard Dale Holman." Holman stood. He didn't like the way Wally was fidgeting and licking his lips. "You know I have a boy. You've seen his picture." "He's a kid." "He'd be twenty-three now. He's twenty-three. Why you want to know about this?" "Max, listen, is he a police officer? Here in L.A.?" "That's right." Wally came over and touched Holman's arm with fingers as light as a breath. "It's bad, Max. I have some bad news now and I want you to get ready for it." Wally searched Holman's eyes as if he wanted a sign, so Holman nodded. "Okay, Wally. What?" "He was killed last night. I'm sorry, man. I'm really, really sorry." Holman heard the words; he saw the pain in Wally's eyes and felt the concern in Wally's touch, but Wally and the room and the world left Holman behind like one car pulling away from another on a flat desert highway, Holman hitting the brakes, Wally hitting the gas, Holman watching the world race away. Then he caught up and fought down an empty, terrible ache. "What happened?" "I don't know, Max. There was a call from the Bureau of Prisons when I went for your papers. They didn't have much to say. They wasn't even sure it was you or if you were still here." Holman sat down again and this time Wally sat beside him. Holman had wanted to look up his son after he spoke with Donna. That last time he saw the boy, just two months before Holman was pinched in the bank gig, the boy had told him to fuck off, running alongside the car as Holman drove away, eyes wet and bulging, screaming that Holman was a loser, screaming fuck off, you loser. Holman still dreamed about it. Now here they were and Holman was left with the empty sense that everything he had been moving to for the past ten years had come to a drifting stop like a ship that had lost its way. Wally said, "You want to cry, it's okay." Holman didn't cry. He wanted to know who did it. * * * Dear Max, I am writing because I want you to know that Richard has made something of himself despite your bad blood. Richard has joined the police department. This past Sunday he graduated at the police academy by Dodger stadium and it was really something. The mayor spoke and helicopters flew so low. Richard is now a police officer. He is strong and good and not like you. I am so proud of him. He looked so handsome. I think this is his way of proving there is no truth to that old saying "like father like son." Donna * * * This was the last letter Holman received, back when he was still at Lompoc. Holman remembered getting to the part where she wrote there was no truth about being like father like son, and what he felt when he read those words wasn't embarrassment or shame; he felt relief. He remembered thinking, thank God, thank God . He wrote back, but the letters were returned. He wrote to his son care of the Los Angeles Police Department, just a short note to congratulate the boy, but never received an answer. He didn't know if Richie received the letter or not. He didn't want to force himself on the boy. He had not written again.Copyright ©2006 by Robert Crais Excerpted from The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.