Psychologist Alex Delaware is back in his thirteenth novel with his old friend Detective Milo Sturgis. Together, they are drawn into a plot that links some of Los Angeles' most wealthy and powerful families and the city's most helpless victims. Delaware receives a mysterious book on his doorstep - a beautifully bound volume that contains archival-quality photographs of murder victims, arranged in sequence by an unseen but meticulous hand. This is the Murder Book - a tantalizing mystery, but a record of terrible, brutal death. When Sturgis realizes that he can identify one of the victims, the trail goes hot, but in the process, both Sturgis and Delaware must confront some of their most deeply buried personal demons. This is psychological suspense at its most compelling.
The day I got the murder book, I was still thinking about Paris. Red wine, bare trees, gray river, city of love. Everything that happened there. Now, this.
Robin and I flew in to Charles de Gaulle airport on a murky Monday in January. The trip had been my idea of a surprise. I'd pulled it together in one manic night, booking tickets on Air France and a room at a small hotel on the outskirts of the Eighth arrondissement, packing a suitcase for two, speeding the 125 freeway miles to San Diego. Showing up at Robin's room at the Del Coronado just before midnight with a dozen coral roses and a voilà! grin.
She came to the door wearing a white T-shirt and a hip-riding red sarong, auburn curls loose, chocolate eyes tired, no makeup. We embraced, then she pulled away and looked down at the suitcase. When I showed her the tickets, she turned her back and shielded me from her tears. Outside her window the night black ocean rolled, but this was no holiday on the beach. She'd left L.A. because I'd lied to her and put myself in danger. Listening to her cry now, I wondered if the damage was irreparable.
I asked what was wrong. As if I had nothing to do with it.
She said, "I'm just . . . surprised."
We ordered room-service sandwiches, she closed the drapes, we made love.
"Paris," she said, slipping into a hotel bathrobe. "I can't believe you did all this." She sat down, brushed her hair, then stood. Approached the bed, stood over me, touched me. She let the robe slither from her body, straddled me, shut her eyes, lowered a breast to my mouth. When she came the second time, she rolled away, went silent.
I played with her hair and, as she fell asleep, the corners of her mouth lifted. Mona Lisa smile. In a couple of days, we'd be queuing up as robotically as any other tourists, straining for a glimpse of the real thing.
She'd fled to San Diego because a high school chum lived there--a thrice-married oral surgeon named Debra Dyer, whose current love interest was a banker from Mexico City. ("So many white teeth, Alex!") Francisco had suggested a day of shlock-shopping in Tijuana followed by an indeterminate stay at a leased beach house in Cabo San Lucas. Robin, feeling like a fifth wheel, had begged off, and called me, asking if I'd join her.
She'd been nervous about it. Apologizing for abandoning me. I didn't see it that way, at all. Figured her for the injured party.
I'd gotten myself in a bad situation because of poor planning. Blood had spilled and someone had died. Rationalizing the whole thing wasn't that tough: Innocent lives had been at stake, the good guys had won, I'd ended up on my feet. But as Robin roared away in her truck, I faced the truth:
My misadventures had little to do with noble intentions, lots to do with a personality flaw.
A long time ago, I'd chosen clinical psychology, the most sedentary of professions, telling myself that healing emotional wounds was how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. But it had been years since I'd conducted any long-term therapy. Not because, as I'd once let myself believe, I'd burned out on human misery. I had no problem with misery. My other life force-fed me gobs of misery.
The truth was cold: Once upon a time I had been drawn to the humanity and the challenge of the talking cure, but sitting in the office, dividing hour after hour by three quarters, ingesting other people's problems, had come to bore me.
In a sense, becoming a therapist had been a strange choice. I'd been a wild boy--poor sleeper, restless, overactive, high pain threshold, inclined to risk-taking and injuries. I quieted down a bit when I discovered books but found the...
Reviews
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Kellerman's fans will especially enjoy this installment in his series about child psychologist Alex Delaware. However, a large part of it centers on gay detective Mike Sturgis, whose story is told in the third person, unlike Delaware's, which is told in the first person. The book contains the usual elements: grisly murders; convoluted plot lines with numerous villains, some of them cops; assorted red herrings; lots of violence; and a morally murky resolution, all beginning with a photo album of murder victims sent to Delaware anonymously. Reader John Rubinstein is superb. Quick-paced, dramatic, with consistent and accurate character differentiation and a flawless presentation, he makes a good novel into an even better audiobook. T.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
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