Victims

December 5, 2011
In Edgar-winner Kellerman’s less than compelling 27th Alex Delaware novel (after 2011’s Mystery), the child psychologist/police consultant and his LAPD homicide detective pal, Lt. Milo Sturgis, look into the possibly ritualistic murder of 56-year-old Vita Berlin, whose mutilated body was found lying on some towels in her apartment. An odd note left in a pizza box is about the only clue. When another body turns up similarly butchered and more follow, it’s enough to put even the food-loving Milo off his feed. At Milo’s request, Alex talks to Berlin’s psychologist in the hope of getting some insight into the difficult, self-righteous woman. Trying to figure out the tortuous link between killer and victims takes Alex back to his days as a young psychology intern and his supervisor, “a former research assistant to Anna Freud during the London years.” Too many plot contrivances make this one of Kellerman’s weaker efforts, but the usual effective interplay between Alex and Milo should satisfy series fans.

January 15, 2012
A serial killer eludes a cop and a psychiatrist. Even LAPD homicide consultant Alex Delaware, a child psychiatrist who labors hard not to be judgmental, is nauseated by the gory handiwork confronting his good friend Detective Milo Sturgis: a corpse with her guts strung about her like a necklace. And she's only the first victim. There will be five in all, seemingly with nothing in common except their killer's obsessive mayhem and the paper adorned with a large question mark slipped beside their bodies. Much theorizing by Alex and much legwork by Milo determine that the killer and his victims may first have collided at the now defunct Ventura State Hospital, where the mentally unbalanced were incarcerated and the most untreatable of the lot consigned to the Specialized Care Unit. But privacy issues prevent them from examining old patient files, and psychiatrists who could offer information waffle. As the bodies pile up, Milo loses favor with his bosses and Alex has to wonder if he's misread some interviewee's remarks. Slowly, the men arrive at the same conclusion: the serial killer has a partner. Is one the mentor and the other the mentee? Did they bond at Ventura and begin their killing years later, after the closing of the hospital made revenge (for what?) possible? Clearly, an unraveling of the havoc will require a return to the Ventura site, with lingering aftereffects for both Alex and Milo. Fans of this long-running series (Mystery, 2011, etc.) will get exactly what they've come to expect: a thoughtful Alex, a mildly sarcastic Milo and a well-constructed plot, although here the final sequences seem more in keeping with TV melodrama than Kellerman's usual product.

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January 1, 2012
In the latest Alex Delaware novel, solving a series of murders requires putting together a particularly difficult jigsaw puzzle. What do several seemingly unconnected victims have in common? As psychologist Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis struggle to put the pieces of the puzzle together, the body count keeps growing: a nasty, friendless woman; an accountant; a married couple; a homeless man. Clues are hard to come by, and even when Delaware begins to get a glimpse of the big picture, it's fuzzy, the killer's identity hidden, perhaps forever, in the shadows of history. The first Delaware novel, When the Bough Breaks, was published in 1985, but Kellerman has kept the series from devolving into mere formula by finding new variations on the psychological-forensic-thriller format. This one is presented as a procedural, and, as with Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels, it's the step-by-step process of the investigation that keeps us turning the pages. In the long-running Delaware series, this one is in the top tier. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Kellerman's books have sold more than 40 million copies; he has had three number-one New York Times best-sellers; and his Alex Delaware novels have won both Edgar and Anthony Awards. Now that's a track record.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)