And they’re back – psychologist Alex Delaware and his good friend, LAPD homicide Lieutenant Milo Sturgis, in the forty-third novel in the Alex Delaware series.
Most have been penned by Jonathan Kellerman himself, with a few co-authored with his son, Jesse Kellerman. City of the Dead would appear to be a solo effort.
Early morning in an up-market Los Angeles suburb. A delivery truck hits something, but it’s not your normal pedestrian accident. The victim is a naked man, and he has not been hit by the front of the truck. Could it be a student, running around the neighbourhood naked for some sort of prank, or is it something deeper or more sinister?
A concerned neighbour tells the investigating officer that there’s a suspect house a little way down the road, suspect in that there are normally an inordinate number of people visiting at all hours of the day or night, leading the neighbour to believe that the house could well be a brothel.
A trail of bloodstains leads to the house, and another body is discovered, this time a woman who is recognised by Alex Delaware, a woman he had met during a custody dispute some two years previously, Cordelia Gannett, who was suddenly thrust into the midst of the custody hearing, being introduced as a qualified relationship expert. Upon investigation, Gannet’s “qualifications” did not pass muster, and she was exposed as having only a correspondence school degree, and had recently been brought up on charges of misrepresentation.
The question that arises with her death is whether she has been practising illegally in the meantime, or whether she is in fact at all what she seems. As Milo and Dr. Delaware get further into their investigation, a tortured family history comes to light, with various players trying to cover up a somewhat dubious past.
City of the Dead is a good and well-written psychological thriller that takes the reader from one end of LA to the other, with numerous twists and turns. Well worth the read if you are a Kellerman fan!
City of the Dead is published by Penguin Random House UK. ISBN 978 -1-529-12595-5 - Barry Meehan
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