The Watchman was published by Simon & Schuster in 2007, the first novel told primarily from Joe Pike’s perspective. Larkin Conner Barkley, a wealthy young woman, witnessed a car accident that turned out to be a murder. Now the killers want her dead. The US Marshals can’t protect her — someone is leaking her location. Pike is hired as a private bodyguard.
The novel operates as a sustained chase: Pike moves Larkin from safe house to safe house across Los Angeles, but every location is compromised within hours. Someone inside the Justice Department is feeding information to the killers. Pike must identify the leak while keeping Larkin alive and managing her (she is spoiled, reckless, and initially contemptuous of Pike’s silent authority).
Crais uses the Pike-perspective novel to explore how the world looks to a man whose life is defined by vigilance — every room is assessed for exits, every person is evaluated for threat level, every silence is monitored for what it conceals. The claustrophobia of constant alertness is the novel’s real subject.
Collecting The Watchman
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2007): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $10–$20
- Signed first: $25–$50