Traci Beller was 13 when her father — co-owner of a heating and air conditioning company — went out on some service calls and never returned home. The police, who found no trace of him, concluded that he had simply abandoned his family.
The family then turned to Jessica Byers, a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office investigator turned private eye — and a darned good one. But she also turned up nothing.
Ten years later, the missing man has been officially declared dead, but Traci, now a known as “the muffin girl,” a celebrity chef with a huge following, never believed her sweet daddy had walked out on her without a word. The people managing her career urge Traci to let it go and get on with her life — but she can’t. Instead, she turns to Elvis Cole, the self-declared world’s greatest detective.
So begins The Big Empty, Robert Crais’ 20th novel featuring Cole and his partner, Joe Pike.
After warning Traci that his chances of finding something the police and Byers overlooked is extremely small, Cole begins by chatting up the people at the SurfMutt, a burger joint in the little desert town of Rancha, California, where the missing man was last seen.
