β Scribed by Jonathan Kellerman
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.
***NEW YORK TIMES *BESTSELLER **The voice belongs to a woman, but Dr. Alex Delaware remembers a little girl. It is eleven years since seven-year-old Melissa Dickinson dialed the hospital help line for comfortand found it in therapy with Alex Delaware. Now the lovely young heiress is desperately calling for the psychologists help once more. Only this time it looks like Melissas deepest childhood nightmare is really coming true.A page-turner from beginning to end.Los Angeles Times
Twenty years ago, Gina Dickinson, Melissas mother, suffered a grisly assault that left the budding actress irreparably scarred and emotionally crippled. Now her acid-wielding assailant is out of prison and back in L.A.and Melissa is terrified that the monster has returned to hurt Gina again. But before Alex Delaware can even begin to soothe his former patients fears, Gina, a recluse for twenty years, disappears. And now, unless Delaware turns crack detective to uncover the truth, Gina Dickinson will be just one more victim of a cold fury that has already spawned madness . . . and murder.
Kellerman devises a psychologically complex, highly satisfying plot in this latest mystery (after Time Bomb ) to feature child psychologist Alex Delaware, although we wait too long for the best parts and although Delaware, his love life on hold, seems less emotionally present than in previous cases. Harvard-bound, 18-year-old heiress Melissa Dickinson, whom Delaware had successfully treated for anxiety 10 years earlier, calls him with concerns about leaving her wealthy mother, an agoraphobe. Years before Melissa's birth, Gina Dickinson Ramp had been disfigured by acid thrown for never-revealed reasons by a former lover, now out of prison and back in town. Widowed for many years, recently remarried and making progress in her own intensive therapy with a noted husband-and-wife team of behaviorial psychologists, Gina is still fragile. When she disappears, Melissa enlists Delaware's help and that of his friend, Milo Sturgis, on leave from the LAPD (for having slugged, on TV, a homophobic superior). Kellerman deftly handles the strings of his plot, keeping in question the plight of Gina and the identities of those wishing her ill, until final events make what came before seem inevitable. A brief reunion with his former lover Robin will leave readers hoping for a reconciliation in Delaware's next appearance. 150,000 first printing; major ad/promo.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"Vividly realistic ... explores the subject withhaunting emotional power."-- Playboy
"A page-turner from beginning toend." --Los Angeles Times
"A gut-wrenching scenario... might well beKellerman's finest."--Booklist
From the Paperback edition.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
El psicΓ³logo Alex Delaware recibe un dΓa una llamada: es de Melissa Dickinson a quien Γ©l tratΓ³ de niΓ±a y que ahora, convertida en una rica heredera y en una bella y prometedora joven, le necesita de nuevo. En esta ocasiΓ³n para atender a su madre, en quien a la cicatrices fΓsicas que le dejΓ³ un ataca
The voice belongs to a woman, but Dr. Alex Delaware remembers a little girl. It is eleven years since seven-years-old Melissa Dickinson dialed a hospital help line for comfortβand found it in therapy with Alex Delaware. Now the lovely young heiress is desperately calling for psychologist's help once
### From Publishers Weekly Kellerman devises a psychologically complex, highly satisfying plot in this latest mystery (after Time Bomb ) to feature child psychologist Alex Delaware, although we wait too long for the best parts and although Delaware, his love life on hold, seems less emotionally pre
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's *Victims.* A second-rate actor is found mutilated in a car trunk. Then a psychologist at a Los Angeles hospital for the criminally insane is murdered in a similar grisly fashion. Suddenly the incoherent ramblings of an inmate at the