It's no news to real estate reporters that every story is a real estate story. Yet real estate is rarely the subject of crime novels. That's why I was surprised to discover a real estate angle in a recent novel by Robert Crais, who is undisputably one of the best crime writers at work today. In Crais' new bestseller "The Watchman," which is about the betrayals of abusive fathers, an FBI agent investigating a cartel that funnels drug money to terrorists tells our hero Joe Pike: "Everything happening in the world today is about real estate." Well said. And by the way, the book is terrific.