Category Archives: Alex Delaware Series

February 5, 2021 · 12:02 am

Review: Serpentine by Jonathan Kellerman

Title: Serpentine by Jonathan Kellerman
Alex Delaware Series Book 36
Publisher: Cornerstone
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 355 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

The electrifying new Alex Delaware thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.

Ellie Barker never knew her mother.

When she was barely three years old, her mother was found with a bullet in her head inside a torched Cadillac, overturned on Mulholland Drive. No physical evidence, no witness and no apparent motive.

Twenty-five years on, many detectives tried and failed to get to the bottom of the case.

Desperate for answers, Ellie hires LAPD homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis, who calls in the expertise of brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware, to investigate.

But as the duo start digging, the mystery becomes even more twisted. And they soon discover a string of dangerous threats still lurking in the present…

Review:

Serpentine by Jonathan Kellerman is a twisty-turny cold case mystery. This latest release is another fantastic installment in the long-running but still fresh Alex Delaware series.

Psychologist Alex Delaware’s friend Los Angeles police Lt. Milo Sturgis has been handed a thirty-six year old cold case to look into. Thirty-nine year old Ellie Barker was only three years old when her mother Dorothy Swoboda was murdered. Raised by her step-father Stanley, she has little information to offer about her mother. Milo and Alex soon discover there is also little official information about her murder. But they excel at locating and following clues that will hopefully provide them with the answers Ellie is searching for.

Alex and Milo longstanding friendship and professional collaboration once again serve them well as they discuss theories about Dorothy’s murder. They revisit the scene where her body was discovered and track down another detective who also worked the cold case.  A deadly picture is beginning to emerge as Alex and Milo notice there have been more than a few untimely deaths.  Is this just a coincidence? Or is there a more sinister reason?

The investigation is steady-paced but always interesting as Alex makes some very intuitive deductions. Milo is no slouch either as he uses all of the police tools at his disposal to find people that were connected with Dorothy. The discovery of an old photo proves to be invaluable as they turn to the public to help identify the people in the picture. Will these new details help Milo and Alex break the case wide open?

Serpentine is a compelling police procedural that is quite intriguing.  Milo and Alex doggedly pursue their quest for the truth about what happened to Ellie’s mother. Despite the passage of time and lack of evidence, they continue to follow every lead in hopes of catching a killer. With stunning twists and cunning turns, Jonathan Kellerman brings this engrossing mystery to a very surprising conclusion.  This thirty-sixth outing in the Alex Delaware series is sure to delight old and new fans of this outstanding series.

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Filed under Alex Delaware Series, Contemporary, Cornerstone, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, Serpentine, Suspense

February 13, 2017 · 11:57 pm

Review: Heartbreak Hotel by Jonathan Kellerman

Title: Heartbreak Hotel by Jonathan Kellerman
Alex Delaware Series Book 32
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Length: 368 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

Alex Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis investigate the death of Alex’s most mysterious patient to date in the sensational new thriller from the master of suspense, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman.

At nearly one hundred years old, Thalia Mars is a far cry from the patients that child psychologist Alex Delaware normally treats. But the charming, witty woman convinces Alex to meet with her in a suite at the Aventura, a luxury hotel with a checkered history.

What Thalia wants from Alex are answers to unsettling questions—about guilt, patterns of criminal behavior, victim selection. When Alex asks the reason for her morbid fascination, Thalia promises to tell all during their next session. But when he shows up the following morning, he is met with silence: Thalia is dead in her room.

When questions arise about how Thalia perished, Alex and homicide detective Milo Sturgis must peel back the layers of a fascinating but elusive woman’s life and embark on one of the most baffling investigations either of them has ever experienced. For Thalia Mars is a victim like no other, an enigma who harbored nearly a century of secrets and whose life and death draw those around her into a vortex of violence.

Heartbreak Hotel is classic Delaware and classic Kellerman.

Review:

Heartbreak Hotel by Jonathan Kellerman  is the latest fast-paced and engrossing addition to the Alex Delaware series.

A child psychologist and part-time consultant to the LAPD, Dr. Alex Delaware’s newest client is a surprisingly well-liked woman about to celebrate her 100th birthday.  Alex is intrigued and charmed by his first meeting with Thalia Mars, but he has no idea exactly what direction their sessions are going to take.  Unfortunately, he never gets the chance to find out what his client hoped to gain from talking to him since she is murdered before their second appointment.  Alex and his friend, LAPD homicide detective, Lt. Milo Sturgis, team up once again to solve the case and their search for answers takes a very interesting  turn when Alex begins poking around in Thalia’s past.

By all accounts, Thalia is well-loved by everyone she knows. She has lived at the Aventura Hotel for most of her life and while her bungalow is a getting a little shabby, she is still paying a pretty hefty chunk of change in monthly rent.  When Alex begins trying to find out more about Thalia’s past, he quickly realizes there are a few incongruent details about the former CPA and long retired county assessor.  Thalia’s lawyer, Ricki Sylvester fills in a few of the blanks about her former client’s life but Alex is still very curious about how Thalia acquired her surprising wealth.  Once he figures out her unexpected ties to gangsters and a long ago jewel heist,  Alex and Milo’s investigation takes yet another compelling turn.  But the one piece of the puzzle they are having a difficult time finding is the link between those long ago events and Thalia’s murder nearly seventy years later.

With a cleverly plotted and very fascinating storyline, Heartbreak Hotel is a spellbinding installment in the Alex Delaware series.   The age of Delaware’s latest client makes the premise of this latest release very unique as does the discovery of Thalia’s ties to a decades old robbery and her surprising link to the mob.  The investigation never lags as Alex and Milo leave no stone unturned during their search for Thalia’s killer.  Veteran author Jonathan Kellerman has penned another solid police procedural that readers of the genre are going to love.

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Filed under Alex Delaware Series, Ballantine Books, Contemporary, Heartbreak Hotel, Jonathan Kellerman, Mystery, Rated B+, Review

February 3, 2016 · 11:57 pm

Review: Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman

Title: Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman
Alex Delaware Series Book 31
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Length: 368 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

Bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman has been universally hailed as the master of psychological suspense, and the blockbuster new thriller featuring Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis confirms his status as today’s preeminent practitioner of saber-sharp storytelling.

Psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware meets beautiful and emotionally fragile TV actress Zelda Chase when called upon to evaluate her five-year-old son, Ovid. Years later, Alex is unexpectedly reunited with Zelda when she is involuntarily committed after a bizarre psychotic episode. Shortly after Zelda’s release, an already sad situation turns tragic when she is discovered dead on the grounds of a palatial Bel Air estate. Having experienced more than enough of L.A.’s dark side to recognize the scent of evil, Alex turns to his friend LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis for help in finding out who ended Zelda’s broken life.

At the same time, Alex is caught up in another quest: the search for Zelda’s missing son. And when other victims vanish from the same upscale neighborhood, worry turns to terror.

As Alex struggles to piece together the brief rise and steep fall of a gorgeous, talented actress, he and Milo unveil shattered dreams, the corruption of a family, and a grotesque betrayal of innocence. With each devastating revelation and damning clue, Alex’s brilliant mind is challenged as never before—and his determination grows to see a killer caged and the truth set free.

Review:

Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman is an exceptionally well-written and intriguing addition to the Alex Delaware series. In this outing, psychologist and police consultant Alex Delaware and police lieutenant Milo Sturgis stumble onto some very perplexing murders while at the same time searching for a missing young boy with ties to one of the victims.

Although Alex’s history with Zelda Chase and her young son Ovid was brief and occurred several years earlier, he agrees to evaluate her when contacted by a psychiatric outpatient facility. He is rather stunned to see the once beautiful actress’s mental state has greatly deteriorated and he grows very concerned about Ovid once he learns she has been living on the streets. Deeply medicated and mostly uncommunicative, Zelda is unable to answer questions about his whereabouts so Alex enlists Milo’s help in locating the missing boy. Knowing there might be a glimmer of truth in Zelda’s psychotic ravings, Alex tries to separate fact from fiction after her untimely death and he quickly becomes obsessed as he tries to uncover new details that he hopes will lead to Ovid.

Sadly, Zelda quickly ended up homeless after her sitcom was cancelled and finding anyone who knew her is like finding a needle in a haystack. With little to go on, Alex tracks down her former cast mates and while he does not learn much new information, their observations reiterate his suspicions she suffered from bipolar disorder. Quickly exhausting the scant clues he uncovers, he finally gives up actively investigating her life and death, but two perplexing disappearances in the same area where Zelda died revitalizes the investigation. Piecing together the connection between Zelda’s death and the two missing maids takes the case in a very surprising direction, and Alex and Milo continue to struggle to make sense of the evidence. Another seemingly unrelated death is too coincidental to ignore but finding the link between the murders is seemingly impossible.

Alex and Milo are both too stubborn to give up despite their lack of progress and initially, Alex does a lot of the legwork on the different cases. Utilizing some of Milo’s police contacts, he uncovers new information about a long ago disappearance, but he quickly hits yet another dead end. Once the truth about closely guarded family secrets is exposed, the pieces begin to fall into place, but Milo and Alex are prevented from searching for new evidence by bureaucratic red tape. Alex cleverly maneuvers around the legal obstacles that stand in their way and the case is eventually cracked wide open when they uncover the evidence they need to make arrests for the murders.

Breakdown is a riveting police procedural that is full of shocking twists and turns. The storyline is complex but very easy to follow and each new development brilliantly advances the novel toward its stunning conclusion. As with the previous novels in the Alex Delaware series, Jonathan Kellerman provides enough background information about Alex, Milo and their longstanding friendship/professional collaboration that newcomers to the series will have no trouble reading this latest installment (but I highly recommend the entire series). An outstanding crime drama that fans of the genre are to enjoy.

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Filed under Alex Delaware Series, Ballantine Books, Breakdown, Contemporary, Jonathan Kellerman, Mystery, Rated B+, Review