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Title: Monster : a Novel by John Rubinstein, Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 0-375-40800-2 Publisher: Bantam Books-Audio Pub. Date: 07 December, 1999 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 5 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.21 (131 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Is a monster born or made?
Comment: Alex Delaware returns .... again. In this novel, Alex's best friend, LA cop Milo Sturgis, requests his company on a visit to the facility housing some of the state's criminally insane while investigating the macabre death of a resident psychologist. Before long, they get caught up in a bizarre web of family secrets, revenge and deeply psychotic behaviour, culminating in the "life or death" scene we expect from Jonathan Kellerman.
Unlike a lot of reviewers, I was grateful for the small amount of character development achieved in this novel. Maybe that's because Kellerman is now writing for a particular audience of Delaware fans, and can assume familiarity with his characters. For the first time I can remember, Milo's sexual preferences were implied rather than proselytised and Alex and Robin's relationship seems to have settled into a comfort zone, thank goodness. Her work as a luthier was interesting at first, but I don't need in-depth descriptions in every novel - there was just enough in this one to show she's an independent gal. After all, these novels are supposed to be thrillers, not guitar making manuals, whatever the author's personal interest. And, thankfully, the house is finished, so we are done with endless building details.
Some reviewers say "Monster" forms a departure from the child psychology more usual in Kellerman's Delaware novels, but just consider when most of the victims/suspects suffered the trauma that lead to their adult behaviour.
I don't know how many police forces would grant a civilian, albeit an occasional consultant, as much investigational liberty as Delaware enjoys with the LAPD - they seem to be better served by a psychologist than trained officers. Happily for them, Delaware set off on the right trail almost immediately, while Milo first pursued the obligatory red herrings and chased the wild geese. I'm no rocket scientist, but I had the "monster" pegged pretty early on.
I once collected Kellerman novels (both J & F), but after the awful "The Web", happily donated them to my local library some years ago. I bought this one as part of a selection (give Delaware one more try, I thought) to gain bonus shopping points at a city department store and read it in one day just over a week ago - I've almost forgotten it already. Either I'm losing my taste for this kind of thriller (I hope not), or Kellerman is losing his edge.
Still, even a journeyman Kellerman novel is usually better than the average thriller, though I'm probably biased since I'm a bit of a fan of Milo and Alex, and enjoyed seeing what these familiar characters were up to. And it was great to see Kellerman return to this milieu after the extremely ordinary "Billy Straight".
If you need something that will keep you turning the pages on a long flight or for holiday or vacation reading, you could do a lot worse.
Rating: 4
Summary: Well-written psychological thriller
Comment: Dr. Delaware, serves as a psychiatric consultant to the police department. He and Detective Milo Sturgis set out to solve the crime of a psychologist who worked at a hospital for the criminally insane. The head of the facility tells them that the Dr. was safe when she was there--it was in the outside world that she met her untimely end. The victim had been working with Ardis Peake, a young man who had brutally murdered his own mother and another family many years ago. Her interest in him was spurred by dark family secrets in her own past, which are uncovered as the plot proceeds. More murders occur which bear a grisly resemblance to the Dr.'s murder and which are eerily foretold in the psychotic mutterings of Peake. There are many twists and turns until the final solution is revealed. Kellerman writes of the inmates with stark realism, but also with a great amount of understanding. An interesting book!
Rating: 5
Summary: Is There a New Monster In Town?
Comment: One day, in the small town of Treadway, Ardis Peake ambled into the kitchen and calmly cut off his mother's head, then he went upstairs where the couple of the household lay asleep and brutally dispatched them as well. Not finished with his killing spree, he went down the hall to visit the children's room. The five-year-old girl was found without her eyes and, as for the baby boy, the police followed Ardis' bloody footprints out of the house to the shack where Ardis lay peacefully asleep. A pot was boiling away on the stove. The baby was in it.
They locked Ardis "Monster" Peake up in the Starkweather State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he remained for fifteen years non-verbal, non-responsive, non-violent, probably because of his Thorazine diet. However on two different occasions he spoke, but only long enough to predict two violent deaths.
The doctors at the asylum swear there is no way Ardis could have gotten out. But Dr. Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis are certain there's a deadly link between Peake and the deaths, the murders are too similar. Is there a new monster? And if so is he somehow communicating with the old one?
The clues lead them back to Treadway where the Peake had gone on his rampage, but the trail is old and cold as the town is gone, in its place now, a retirement community. However, maybe that trail isn't quiet so cold as first thought, maybe there is a clue or two around, but can Alex and Milo figure them out before someone else is brutally murdered?
In "Monster" Alex and Milo are into one of their most gruesome cases yet, a case full of surprises, red herrings and lots of twists and turns. The book is fast-paced, tense, powerful and an excellent read.
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Title: Dr. Death by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 0345413881 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 28 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Survival of the Fittest by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 0345458842 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Clinic by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 034546074X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Self-Defense by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 0345458834 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Flesh and Blood by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 034541389X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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