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Read The Two Minute Rule (2007)

The Two Minute Rule (2007)

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Rating
3.96 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
1416514961 (ISBN13: 9781416514961)
Language
English
Publisher
pocket star

The Two Minute Rule (2007) - Plot & Excerpts

Robert Crais is best known for his series featuring L.A. private-eye Elvis Cole and Cole's partner, the inscrutable Joe Pike. But while I like those books, this stand-alone, originally published in 2006, remains my favorite of Crais's novels.Two thugs named Marchenko and Parsons are stricly amateur, if brutal, bank robbers. They do not know the Two Minute Rule, which holds that a robber only has a two minute window to be in and out of a bank before the law is almost certainly going to be on the scene. The two get lucky long enough to score almost $17 million in a string of robberies, but their luck runs out when they walk out of their last bank into a hail of police bullets.Max Holman is, or was, a professional bank robber who knew and scrupulously observed the Two Minute Rule. But in a moment of weakness, he broke the rule and was arrested in the middle of a robbery by a team led by FBI agent, Katherine Pollard. Ten years down the road, Max is finally being released from prison and his dream is to be reconciled with his son, Richie, who in rejecting his father has gone all the way in the other direction to become an L.A. cop.Just as Max is being processed out, though, he receives the worst possible news imaginable: Richie has been murdered, along with three other police officers. The detectives investigating the killings quickly pin the crime on a gangbanger who then conveniently commits suicide, closing the case--at least as far as the cops are concerned.A devastated Max, thinks the whole package is all too neat. His cursory inspection of the murder site convinces him that the killings could not have occurred as the police have theorized and he is determined to find the truth. For help, he turns to Katherine Pollard, the agent who arrested him. Pollard has left the Bureau and is now a widow with two small children. Reluctantly, she agrees to assist Max and it quickly becomes apparent that their efforts to discover what really happened the night of the murders is stirring up the proverbial hornets' nest. The cops and the Feebs insist that Max and Pollard step down and accept the police version of the crime. When the two refuse to do so, they suddenly find themselves in very grave danger with no apparent way out.This is a book with well-developed characters and a fast-paced plot that seems perfectly believable. Readers who have enjoyed Crais's Cole/Pike books will certainly want to look for this one.

We’ve read a handful of the author’s Cole/Pike series, and certainly enjoyed them enough to try “Rule”, a standalone mystery. The “rule” denotes the time limit for a successful bank robbery – after the book opens with two Ukrainian mopes that disregard and go down in a gunfight, we meet Max Holman, whose release day from ten years of prison has arrived after he broke the rule as well (though we find out way later why…).Bitterly, Max learns his estranged son, a cop ironically, has been murdered during the night before his release; and when he hears the rather lame police account of the details, and doesn’t buy into them for one second, that sets us off on a book-long chase for the truth. Max needs help and turns to a former felon friend, Chee, as well as to the very FBI agent, Katherine Pollard, who captured and imprisoned him. Suffice to say their quest has many twists, but it is clear before long there is a potentially massive police conspiracy/cover-up involved, only adding to Holman’s incentive to clear his son’s name.While we don’t find the author’s normal ready wit (via Cole) on display herein, Crais’ character work is terrific, generating nothing but total empathy on the part of we readers with Holman and Pollard. Add to that the plot’s well-crafted suspenseful developments, ending in a spectacular closing scene or two, and it becomes easy to conclude that Crais is just as at home with a new storyline as he is with the regular troops – well done !

What do You think about The Two Minute Rule (2007)?

"The Two Minute Rule" by Robert Crais was a very fun read. It begins with a bank robbery in which the robbers are shot after trying to have a shootout with the police officers there to arrest them. Then you meet Holman, a convicted bank robber about to be released from jail. But right before his release he is told his son, a police officer had been shot the night before. Holman questions police about what happened, but not getting answers that add up leaves Holman to search for answers himself. He makes contact with the only people he knows—his old friend, Chee, another ex-convict—and FBI Agent Pollard—the one who helped lock him away in the first place. Read more at http://compulsivebookreader.blogspot....
—Tiffany Young

This novel was paced wonderfully, contained characters that are very different from me but whom I could feel a bond of empathy, and was carefully plotted. The novel’s title comes from the basic criminal rule that a bank robber must get in and out of the bank in two minutes or risk getting caught. Naturally, with such a title, the book begins with an armed bank robbery that “proves” the rule. This is appropriate because the protagonist is a bank robber. The twist is that this particular bank robbery isn’t being perpetrated by the protagonist, but it has a tremendous impact on his life. The protagonist is a reformed bank robber, but don’t let that fool you into thinking this is a mere “To Catch A Thief” scenario. The protagonist loses his son, ironically a police officer who rejected his father’s mores and lifestyle, in a mysterious shoot-out. He cannot accept the easy answer provided by law enforcement authorities, so he starts his own investigation. Yet, in tremendous realism, he cannot do the investigation himself, so he hires a former law enforcement officer. Yes, irony of ironies, he hires the former FBI agent who put him in prison. And, to be honest, THAT’S not a spoiler because it is one of the minor twists and turns of this delightful novel. From the title through the choice of the most unusual “detective” protagonist I can remember to the very late unveiling of the real antagonist and every “red herring” that threatened to hook me, I enjoyed this excellent novel. I’m starting to think Robert Crais is close to replacing Michael Connelly as my favorite mystery/thriller writer. However, I’m quite unwilling to give either one up. I plan to read the entire canon of each.
—Johnny

Just days before his release from prison, career bank robber Max Holman's life is turned upside down when his son, now a police officer, is gunned down with three other cops under strange circumstances. Max tries to figure out what happened but gets nowhere on his own. The only person he can turn to: the woman who put him away!Sounds pretty good when I say it like that. Too bad it wasn't. I love Robert Crais. I did not love this book. In fact, I tossed it less than halfway through.On the surface, the book sounds like a winner. Elmore Leonard or George Pelecanos could have crafted quite a yarn from such a plot. My problem with the book was with the characters. I didn't care about Max Holman, I didn't care about his dead son, and I sure didn't care for the FBI agent that put him away that he was destined to tumble into bed with, Katherine Pollard.Max Holman didn't have much of a personality outside of his regrets over the past. The book (or the portion I read) reads like Crais was afraid to make Holman too much of a criminal or something. Instead, he made him a loser with no personality. 200 pages with Holman was more than enough. Since I'm a 50-75 page an hour guy, I couldn't see spending another three or four hours on this.Maybe it was just the wrong time but I kept thinking over other books I'd rather be reading or other household tasks I could be doing instead of pushing through The Two-Minute Rule. While I liked Hostage and Demolition Angel, Crais should probably stick to Cole and Pike. Crais should have definitely wrote another Elvis Cole when he was working on this. Two stars. This book is getting converted to store credit at my earliest convenience.
—Dan Schwent

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