BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.
Upon his return to Los Angeles from a harrowing adventure in the South Pacific, Alex is called upon by his friend Milo Sturgis to help solve the murder of a celebrity author.
For three months the police found no clues to the murder of Hope Devane, psychology professor and controversial author of a pop-psych bestseller about men. She was found stabbed to death on a quiet, shaded street in one of L.A.'s best neighborhoods. The evidence suggested not random slaughter, but cold, calculated stalking. And the list of potential suspects was as extensive as the audience for her book and her talk show appearances.
Newly assigned to the cold case, homicide detective Milo Sturgis calls on his friend, Dr. Alex Delaware to seek out insights into the victim's high-profile life. What Alex uncovers is a series of troubling inconsistencies about Hope, including her contradictory personas: the sensational, anti-male bestselling author versus the low-key scholarly university professor.
But it is when Alex delves into Hope's childhood that he begins to understand the forces that made her the formidable woman she was--and the ties that entangled her life until the horrifying act of betrayal that ended it.
Amazon.com Review
Former child psychologist Jonathan Kellerman brings us the 11th installment in the reliable series featuring child psychologist Alex Delaware. Here Delaware teams up again with his old friend Detective Milo Sturgis of the LAPD to investigate the brutal murder of Dr. Hope Devane. Her bestselling book about how men victimize women made her famous; did it also lead to her death? As Sturgis and Delaware begin probing into the details of her life, they find more and more secrets and slowly close in on a killer filled with hate. As usual, Kellerman combines convincing psychological portraits with good dialogue and a plot that coils to a tense finish.
From Publishers Weekly
Kellerman is at his page-turning best in his latest Alex Delaware adventure (after The Web), an investigation into the savage stabbing murder of Hope Devane, a psychology professor and celebrity author. The LAPD, unable to solve the case after three months, reassigns it to Lieutenant Milo Sturgis. Milo calls on his friend Alex, a compassionate, astute psychologist, for insight into the victim, who had a seemingly routine academic career and marriage until writing a pop-psych relationship book. Delving beneath the veneer of Hope's life, Alex uncovers possible enemies: a man with whom she clashed on a TV talk show; students brought before her committee on sexual harassment; patients at a beleaguered women's health clinic where she volunteered. Further questions are raised about the victim's relationships with her doctoral supervisee Casey Locking; about the fertility specialist, from whom she received hefty consultation fees; about her sex life; about a shadowy link to an organized crime figure and the murder of a Las Vegas call girl. Each new avenue of investigation leads Alex and Milo to a dead end until they reach back into Hope Devane's childhood, which reveals links to the present that provide the shocking answer to the puzzle. Kellerman may not be a great stylist, but his serpentine plot and cast of mysterious characters grip the reader to the final page. Major ad/promo.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.