It is fire season and the hills of Los Angeles are burning. As the Police and Fire Departments evacuate the inhabitants, they find something no one expected: the days-old corpse of a middle-aged recluse who apparently committed suicide. Then comes an even more horrible discovery. Clutched in his lap is a photo album containing photographs of seven young women who have been murdered. Each photograph was taken only moments after the women were killed and could only have been taken by the killer.

Elvis Cole. All round nice guy. Always the first man to help a stranger in distress. This time, however, he's paid the ultimate price for trying to be the good Samaritan. Joe Pike. A fierce protector and a dangerous enemy. This time his tough guy exterior will be tested to the limit as he risks everything to save his closest friend. The clock is ticking now that Elvis has been Taken.

A long time ago, Joe Pike asked for help. In return, he would, one day, be called upon to return the favour, no questions asked. That day has come. Joe Pike is asked to protect the life of Larkin Conner Barkley, a spoiled rich girl who happens to be a federal witness in a major case. But someone is leaking information about their whereabouts, and the killers are getting all too close. So Pike hatches a plan: disappear into the anonymous underbelly of Los Angeles, turn the tables and hunt down the hunters.

Six months after nearly losing everything to the men who kidnapped his girlfriend's ten-year-old son, Elvis Cole is slowly coming back to life - when he receives an ominous phone call from the LAPD. An unidentified body has been found in a seedy Los Angeles alley. The only clue the cops have is a packet of newspaper articles about the past exploits of Elvis Cole - and the fact that before the man died, he said he was Elvis' father...Joe Pike is the only person who can help Elvis navigate his past.

On his own turf in L.A., PI Elvis Cole is embroiled in a controversial, high-profile murder case. A wealthy restaurateur is accused of murdering his wife and his hot-shot defence lawyer hires Cole to find proof that the detective on the case, Angela Rossi, fooled around with the evidence. Yet as Elvis investigates Rossi for the defence team, he begins to be more suspicious of the media-loving lawyers than the cops.

Elvis Cole's girlfriend, Lucy, is out of town and she has left her young son, Ben, in Elvis' care. Elvis and Lucy have had a few problems lately - not least over his job as a private investigator. But at last things seem to be getting better. Then Ben disappears. One minute he's playing his computer game in Elvis' house; the next he has vanished. Elvis looks everywhere, but he just can't find Ben; and neither can Lucy when she arrives.

Fifteen-year-old Teri Hewitt has been left holding the babies since her dad disappeared without trace. She wants LA private eye Elvis Cole to find him and although he knows he should refuse and hand it over to social services, he finds himself taking on the case. The search reveals a chronically unemployed drug addict caught up in counterfeiting scams and mixed up with the Russian mafia and Vietnamese gunmen.

The day starts like any other in LA. The sun burns hot as the Santa Ana winds blow ash from mountain fires to coat the glittering city. But for Private Investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, is dead, brutally murdered with a gun shot to the head. 

Hired to uncover the past of Jodi Taylor, an actress in a hit TV show, Elvis leaves his native Los Angeles to head for Louisiana in search of Jodi's biological parents. But before he can tackle the mystery of Jodi's background, he is up against a whole host of eccentrics, including a crazed Raid-spraying housewife, a Cajun thug who looks like he's been made out of spare parts and a menacing hundred-year-old river turtle named Luther.

Elvis Cole is just a detective who can't say no, especially to a girl in a terrible fix. And Jennifer Sheridan qualifies. Her fiance, Mark Thurman, is a decorated LA cop with an elite plainclothes unit, but Jennifer is sure he's in trouble - the kind of serious trouble that only Cole can get him out of.