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From the New York Times bestselling author of Serpentine comes the first thrilling novel in the Alex Delaware series about a psychotic teenage boy accused of six murders.
Dr. Morton Handler practiced a strange brand of psychiatry. Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old Melody Quinn.
It's psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware's job to try to unlock the terrible secret buried in Melody's memory. But as the sinister shadows in the girl's mind begin to take shape, Alex discovers that the mystery touches a shocking incident in his own past.
This connection is only the beginning, a single link in a forty-year-old conspiracy. And behind it lies an unspeakable evil that Alex Delaware must expose before it claims another innocent victim: Melody Quinn.
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ISBN-10
075534281X
ISBN-13
978-0755342815
Print length
448 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Headline
Publication date
February 20, 2008
Dimensions
4.41 x 1.18 x 7.01 inches
Item weight
8.1 ounces
The psychopath is to the psychologist and the psychiatrist what the terminal cancer patient is to the physician: walking, breathing evidence of hopelessness and failure.
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Zeigarnik. She was a Russian psychologist who discovered that people develop tension for unfinished business. They named it after her. The Zeigarnik effect. Like most overachievers I’ve got a big one.
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ASIN :
B003VPWXWY
File size :
2859 KB
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Supported
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"An engrossing thriller... this knockout of an entertainment is the kind of book which establishes a career in one stroke." -- New York Newsday
"Suspenseful, neatly spun, fascinating." -- Philadelphia Daily News
"Grab yourself a copy soon." -- Los Angeles Times
"An exceptionally exciting thriller!" -- The New York Times
CHAPTER 1
It was shaping up as a beautiful morning. The last thing I wanted to hear about was murder.
A cool Pacific current had swept its way across the coastline for two days running, propelling the pollution to Pasadena. My house is nestled in the foothills just north of Bel Air, situated atop an old bridle path that snakes its way around Beverly Glen, where opulence gives way to self-conscious funk. It’s a neighborhood of Porsches and coyotes, bad sewers and sequestered streams.
The place itself is eighteen hundred square feet of silvered redwood, weathered shingles and tinted glass. In the suburbs it might be a shack; up here in the hills it’s a rural retreat—nothing fancy, but lots of terraces, decks, pleasing angles and visual surprises. The house had been designed by and for a Hungarian artist who went broke trying to peddle oversized polychromatic triangles to the galleries on La Cienega. Art’s loss had been my gain by way of L.A. probate court. On a good day—like today—the place came with an ocean view, a cerulean patch that peeked timidly above the Palisades.
I had slept alone with the windows open—burglars and neoMansonites be damned—and awoke at ten, naked, covers thrown to the floor in the midst of some forgotten dream. Feeling lazy and sated, I propped myself on my elbows, drew up the covers and stared at the caramel layers of sunlight streaming through French doors. What finally got me up was the invasion of a housefly who alternated between searching my sheets for carrion and dive-bombing my head.
I shuffled to the bathroom and began filling a tub, then made my way to the kitchen to scavenge, tak- ing the fly with me. I put up coffee, and the fly and I shared an onion bagel. Ten-twenty on a Monday morning with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Oh, blessed decadence.
It had been almost half a year since my premature retirement and I was still amazed at how easy it was to make the transition from compulsive overachiever to self-indulgent bum. Obviously I’d had it in me from the beginning.
I returned to the bathroom, sat on the rim of the tub munching and drew up a vague plan for the day: a leisurely soak, a cursory scan of the morning paper, perhaps a jog down the canyon and back, a shower, a visit to—
The doorbell jarred me out of my reverie.
I tied a towel around my waist and walked to the front entry in time to see Milo let himself in.
“It was unlocked,” he said, closing the door hard and tossing the Times on the sofa. He stared at me and I drew the towel tighter.
“Good morning, nature boy.”
I motioned him in.
“You really should lock the door, my friend. I’ve got files at the station that illustrate nicely what happens to people who don’t.”
“Good morning, Milo.”
I padded into the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee. Milo followed me like a lumbering shadow, opened the refrigerator and took out a plate of cold pizza that I had no recollection of ever owning. He tailed me back to the living room, collapsed on my old leather sofa—an artifact of the abandoned office on Wilshire—balanced the plate on his thigh and stretched out his legs.
I turned off the bathwater and settled opposite him on a camelskin ottoman.
Milo is a big man—six-two, two-twenty—with a big man’s way of going loose and dangly when he gets off his feet. This morning he looked like an oversized rag doll slumped against the cushions—a doll with a broad, pleasant face, almost boyish except for the acne pits that peppered the skin, and the tired eyes. The eyes were startlingly green and rimmed with red, topped by shaggy dark brows and a Kennedyesque shock of thick black hair. His nose was large and high-bridged, his lips full, childishly soft. Sideburns five years out of date trailed down the scarred cheeks.
As usual he wore ersatz Brooks Brothers: olive-green gabardine suit, yellow button-down, mint and gold rep stripe tie, oxblood wing tips. The total effect was as preppy as W. C. Fields in red skivvies.
He ignored me and concentrated on the pizza.
“So glad you could make it for breakfast.”
When his plate was empty he asked, “So, how are you doing, pal?”
“I was doing great. What can I do for you, Milo?”
“Who says I want you to do anything?” He brushed crumbs from his lap to the rug. “Maybe this is a social call.”
“You waltzing in, unannounced, with that bloodhound look all over your face isn’t a social call.”
“Such intuitive powers.” He ran his hands over his face, as if washing without water. “I need a favor,” he said.
“Take the car. I won’t be needing it until late afternoon.”
“No, it’s not that this time. I need your professional services.”
That gave me pause.
“You’re out of my age range,” I said. “Besides, I’m out of the profession.”
“I’m not kidding, Alex. I’ve got one of your colleagues lying on a slab at the morgue. Fellow by the name of Morton Handler.”
I knew the name, not the face.
“Handler’s a psychiatrist.”
“Psychiatrist, psychologist. Minor semantic distinction at this point. What he is, is dead. Throat slashed, a little bit of evisceration tossed in. Along with a lady friend—same treatment for her but worse—sexual mutilation, nose sliced off. The place where it happened—his place—was an abattoir.”
Abattoir. Milo’s master’s degree in American Lit asserting itself.
I put down my coffee cup.
“Okay, Milo. I’ve lost my appetite. Now tell me what all of that has to do with me.”
He went on as if he hadn’t heard me.
“I got called on it at five a.m. I’ve been knee-deep in blood and crud since then. It stunk in there—people smell bad when they die. I’m not talking decay, this is the stench that sets in before decay. I thought I was used to it. Every so often I catch another whiff and it gets me right here.” He poked himself in the belly. “Five in the morning. I left an irritated lover in bed. My head feels ready to implode. Gobs of flesh at five in the morning. Jesus.”
He stood and looked out the window, gazing out over the tops of pines and eucalyptus. From where I sat I could see smoke rising in indolent swirls from a distant fireplace.
“It’s really nice up here, Alex. Does it ever bore you, being in paradise with nothing to do?”
“Not a hint of ennui.”
“Yeah. I guess not. You don’t want to hear any more about Handler and the girl.”
“Stop playing passive-aggressive, Milo, and spit it out.”
He turned and looked down at me. The big, ugly face showed new signs of fatigue.
“I’m depressed, Alex.” He held out his empty cup like some overgrown, slack-jawed Oliver Twist. “Which is why I’ll tolerate more of this disgusting swill.”
I took the cup and got him a refill. He gulped it audibly.
“We’ve got a possible witness. A kid who lives in the same building. She’s pretty confused, not sure what she saw. I took one look at her and thought of you. You could talk to her, maybe try a little hypnosis to enhance her memory.”
“Don’t you have Behavioral Sciences for that?”
He reached into his coat pocket and took out a handful of Polaroids. “Look at these beauties.”
I gave the pictures a second’s glance. What I saw turned my stomach. I returned them quickly.
“For God’s sake, don’t show me stuff like that!”
“Some mess, huh? Blood and crud.” He drained his cup, lifting it high to catch every last drop. “Behavioral Science is cut down to one guy who’s kept busy weeding weirdos out of the department. Next priority is counseling the weirdos who slip through. If I put in an application for this kind of thing I’ll get a request to fill out another application form. They don’t want to do it. On top of that, they don’t know anything about kids. You do.”
“I don’t know anything about homicide.”
“Forget homicide. That’s my problem. Talk to a seven-year-old.”
I hesitated. He held out his hands. The palms were white, well-scrubbed.
“Hey, I’m not expecting a total freebie. I’ll buy you lunch. There’s a fair-to-middling Italian place with surprisingly good gnocchi not far from the . . .”
“Not far from the abattoir?” I grimaced. “No thanks. Anyway, I can’t be bought for noodles.”
“So what can I offer you by way of a bribe—you’ve got everything—the house in the hills, the fancy car, the Ralph Lauren gear with jogging shoes to match. Christ, you’ve got retirement at thirty-three and a goddamn perpetual tan. Just talking about it is getting me pissed.”
“Yes, but am I happy?”
“I suspect so.”
“You’re right.” I thought of the grisly photos. “And I’m certainly not in need of a free pass to the Grand Guignol.”
“You know,” he said, “I’ll bet underneath all of that mellow is a bored young man.”
“Crap.”
“Crap nothing. How long has it been, six months?”
“Five and a half.”
“Five and a half, then. When I met you—correct that, soon after I met you, you were a vibrant guy, high energy, lots of opinions. Your mind was...
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Jonathan Kellerman
Jonathan Kellerman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than three dozen bestselling crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, The Butcher’s Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted, True Detectives, and The Murderer’s Daughter. With his wife, bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman, he co-authored Double Homicide and Capital Crimes. With his son, bestselling novelist Jesse Kellerman, he co-authored The Golem of Hollywood and The Golem of Paris. He is also the author of two children’s books and numerous nonfiction works, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children and With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California, New Mexico, and New York.
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Customer reviews
4.3 out of 5
4,786 global ratings
Rebecca Paige
5
Excellent read
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2022
Verified Purchase
My first Kellerman novel. I enjoyed it, but it was long. The story had a broad range of characters who evolved into complicated individuals. Andrew and Milo were on opposite ends of the spectrum but he made it work. Evil was rampant and a lot of innocent people died. But the good guys win and the ending was superb. I recommend it. Enjoy.
Audrey Martin
5
Alex Delaware book
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2024
Verified Purchase
I decided to read the first in the series and see if it was any good! It was and I am going to go for the next one!
4 people found this helpful
Steven Christensen
5
A Look Back and Getting Old
Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2021
Verified Purchase
I have read most of the books in the series over a long period of time and decided to go back to the beginning and read this first effort. I read it maybe 30 years ago and as part of getting old could not recall a thing about it...LOL
In the beginning the reader learns about the early years of Doctor Delaware, a driven man of achievement, compulsive and a burnout at thirty three who retires financially set after investing wisely in real estate. Unfortunately he finds himself sinking into boredom and depression when a LAPD detective named Milo Sturgis contacts him about the murder of a doctor and his girlfriend, the only witness being a seven year old girl who may remember what she thought she saw in the dark of night.
Alex is hooked and comes out of his funk engrossing himself in the mystery despite Milos warning to back off when the young girl cannot recall anything. Despite this Alex takes on his own investigation into what leads to a horrible tale of pedophilia at the highest levels of society at a ranch in Malibu for troubled children. We also meet Robin, his girlfriend who abhors his getting involved in the case and to me is a very dislikable character from the start and this carries through the series for this reader.
The author has written a very complex first novel that has many facets and I found it fascinating despite being hard to read at times because of the horrors of the subject matter at hand. This is a great book that sets the foundation for who Alex is and just may be one of the best despite being a debut entry in a very long running series. This old guy plans of going on to book two which I am sure I have also read but will not remember!
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21 people found this helpful
Amazon Customer
5
Great story!
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
I've read later books in the series and loved the characters Alex, Milo, Robin, and others. It's great to finally read the first book and to find out how Alex and Milo, Alex and Robin, and Milo and his doctor met each other along with other things referenced in later books that were introduced in this book. This is a great book for those who are reading Jonathan Kellerman's books and a good place to start for those who are new to Jonathan Kellerman. I strongly recommend this great book!
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BaumanBookReviews
4
A nice first book in the series
Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2022
Verified Purchase
I read my first Jonathan Kellerman book awhile ago now, and I've had When the Bough Breaks sitting in my TBR pile for nearly as long. After finding a good chunk of the series at various book sales, it was finally time for me to dig in and read my way through it!
The good news is that I enjoyed the book. It'd be rather unfortunate if I had quite a few books In the series and ended up hating the first one. As someone who, obviously, enjoys mysteries and thrillers but is also a psychology nerd, this series appears to be a wonderful blend of those two interests. For those unfamiliar with the Alex Delaware series - Alex was a child psychologist. After being retired for a few, he becomes a consultant to the police.
All of this was great and intriguing. What I wasn't expecting was just how graphic and vulgar some of the language was - especially since this novel deals with sexual abuse of children - another thing I was not prepared for. I usually keep my reviews as spoiler-free as possible. But, I feel like that needed to be mentioned. Because it was rough.
There are also some things about the writing that make it obvious this series was started in the 80's. It's not specific to the 80's, per se, but some of the racial words and phrases used to describe people are now very out of date. I had to keep reminding myself that this was written decades ago as I was reading it. I can only hope that as the series goes along, the vocabulary becomes more modern.
Sidenote - as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I absolutely love that Milos is gay. That warmed my little heart.
4/5 Stars. I've already started the 2nd book, and I look forward to seeing how the series progresses.
Memorable Quote: “It was shaping up as a beautiful morning. The last thing I wanted to hear about was murder.”
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