Flesh and Blood: An Alex Delaware Novel: 15 - Softcover

Kellerman, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 034550853X ISBN 13: 9780345508539

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2008

Synopsis

Perennial bestseller and acknowledged master of the psychological thriller, Jonathan Kellerman has created a riveting and memorable Alex Delaware novel about a troubled and elusive young woman whose brutal murder forces the brilliant psychologist-detective to confront his own fallibility.

Lauren Teague is a beautiful, defiant, borderline-delinquent teenager when her parents bring her to Alex Delaware's office. But for all Alex's skill and effort, Lauren resists--angrily, provocatively. Reluctantly, the psychologist chalks Lauren up as one of the inevitable failures of a challenging profession. But years later, when Alex encounters Lauren as a stag party's featured entertainment, both doctor and patient are sticken with shame. And the ultimate horror takes place when, soon after, Lauren's brutalized corpse is found dumped in an alley. Alex disregards the advice of his trusted friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, and jeopardizes his relationship with longtime lover, Robin Castagna, in order to pursue Lauren's murderer. As he investigates his young patient's troubled past, Alex enters the shadowy worlds of fringe psychological experimentation and the sex industry, and then into mortal danger when lust and big money collide in Southern California.

Jonathan Kellerman's L.A. is evil, seductive, and unforgiving, and Flesh and Blood is mind-opening in its drama of a driven man's personal quest, breathtaking in its ingenious plot, filled with unforgettable characters, and topped off by a terrifying climax. This is suspense fiction at its finest.

About this title

Review

Alex Delaware is back in Flesh and Blood, one of the tautest outings yet for Jonathan Kellerman's resourceful protagonist. The new book represents a further level of refinement in Kellerman's functional, astringently written prose--it's clear that the author knows exactly what his readers need, and he dispenses with the superfluous. Nary a comma is wasted in this lean, direct piece of work.

Alex first encounters Lauren Teague as an uncommunicative teenager with all the usual hang-ups: poor grades at school, open warfare with her parents, etc. She is sent to a psychologist, and Alex loses track of her. Years later, at a bachelor party for a colleague, Alex is watching two strippers perform a fairly tasteless display and notices that one of them is Lauren. Lauren disappears, and her mother pleads for Alex's help in tracking her down. But her disappearance turns into a murder investigation, and Alex is obliged to confront the demons that brought Lauren to an unenviable end.

The theme of a descent into a truly dark criminal underworld is desperately over-familiar, but Kellerman is fully aware of that and rings the changes with commanding authority. If Alex is more cursorily characterised than usual, that's undoubtedly Kellerman's game plan: the narrative here is the thing, and the merest touches are needed to characterise his canny protagonist. --Barry Forshaw

Review

"[KELLERMAN] HAS SHAPED THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MYSTERY NOVEL INTO AN ART FORM."
-Los Angeles Times Book Review

"VIBRANT . . . [Kellerman] can always be counted on to deliver a smooth and satisfying adventure as he makes his way through the darker sides of Los Angeles."
-Cleveland Plain Dealer

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 034550853X
• ISBN 13: 9780345508539
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544