Valuable quotes

"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow." ~~



"The minute you start talking about what you're going to do if you lose, you've already lost." ~~



Cree Prophecy - "When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money." ~~


Monday, April 30, 2007

Another in the Alex Delaware series...


As I’ve mentioned in the past, I love character-driven series books and Gone is another superb Alex Delaware adventure brought to us by Jonathan Kellerman. This latest has Alex Delaware, an LA child psychologist, and sometime consultant to the police, and his good friend LAPD detective Lieutenant Milo Sturgis investigating the disappearance of a couple of young twenty-something acting students, Michaela Brand and Dylan Meserve, who met at an erstwhile LA acting school run by a wealthy actress wannabe. After Michaela turns up murdered and it’s learned that the disappearance was a hoax to gain attention for the pair, the investigation takes on a whole new complexity.

Delaware often has a very hands-on approach to solving his client's problems and this novel is no different. Also, Kellerman, himself being a former psychologist, can draw on a wealth of experience to pad out Delaware’s cases.

One thing I have always found very appealing about the entire Delaware series, is that Alex is such a close friend of Milos. Milo is an older, kind of out of shape, food loving, big bear of a guy who may make you think in terms of a milder version Andy Sipowicz. Indeed, the opposite of Alex Delaware.
He also happens to be gay.

Milo’s friendship with the straight Alex is handled extremely well – both men offering advice to the other at times regarding their relationships; Alex with his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Robin Castagna and Milo with his wonderfully solid relationship with Dr. Rick Silverman. The friendship adds some warmth and amusement to the otherwise bad business going on in these books. Kellerman weaves this subtle thread unobtrusively through every novel.

Gone takes us on a twisty tale of investigation, painstaking clue gathering and surprises cropping up just when you think you have everything figured out.
From beginning to end, nothing is entirely as it seems. The murder of Michaela may only be the tip of a murderous iceberg as the two men soon discover.
Another thing about Kellermans series’- each of the Delaware novels is a finished stand-alone product. They do not have to be read in any order, though I’m sure it would be more fun if they were. This book, like the rest, is just good, dependable reading. Kellerman weaves his plots beautifully, and nothing is ever ‘set up’ to make all the clues ‘work’.

I also love that Kellerman inserts places into each of his stories, making every incident real for those readers who have been there. In Gone, hoping a witness they've spoken to will open the case up for them, Milo & Alex arrange to meet him at Musso & Frank Grill. The restaraunt is an 80 year old Hollywood institution who’s claim to fame is Where the Stars Dine. Kellerman does this throughout this book as well as other books within the series.

Kellerman has once again published a novel which is perhaps better than the previous ones, but still promising there are better ones yet to come. It’s hard to imagine that he’s going to give us much better than this one! But until they come along, this one comes highly recommended!

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