The First Rule

Publisher Marketing: The organized criminal gangs of the former Soviet Union are bound by what they call the thieves code. The first rule is this: A thief must forsake his mother, father, brothers, and sisters. He must have no family no wife, no children because only other criminals are his family. If any of the rules are broken, it is punishable by death. Frank Meyer had the American dream a wife and family he adored, a successful business until the day a professional crew invaded his home and murdered everyone inside. The only thing out of the ordinary about Meyer was that before the family and the business and the normal life a younger Frank Meyer worked as a professional military contractor, a mercenary, with a man named Joe Pike. Frank was one of Pike s guys, and they faced death together in every rotten hellhole around the world. The police think Meyer was hiding something very bad, because previous home invasions by the crew had targeted only criminals with large stashes of cash or drugs. Pike cannot believe it, and with the help of Cole, he sets out on a hunt of his own: to clear his friend, to punish the people who murdered him. A trail that at first seems relatively simple, however, very quickly becomes complicated, as the two of them find themselves entangled in a web of ancient grudges, blood ties, blackmail, vengeance, double crosses, and cutthroat criminality, and at the heart of it all, an act so terrible even Pike and Cole have no way to measure it." Review Citations: Audio File 04/01/2010 pg. 42 (EAN 9781423375487, Compact Disc) Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/01/2009 pg. 87 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) Booklist 10/15/2009 pg. 5 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) Publishers Weekly 10/26/2009 pg. 30 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2009 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) Romantic Times 01/01/2010 pg. 81 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) Library Journal 12/15/2009 pg. 96 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) - *Starred Review New York Times Book Review 02/14/2010 pg. 26 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2011 pg. 19 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2014 pg. 175 (EAN 9780399156137, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Crais, Robert Robert Crais is the 2006 recipient of the Ross Macdonald Literary Award. He is the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including The Two Minute Rule, The Forgotten Man, and L. A. Requiem.