A Cold Heart (Alex Delaware)

With a cast of former fictional investigators of the LAPD, Author Kellerman adds a sleuth-psychologist to assist in solving Serial Murders. It is a compelling story, entailing good police work, and believable investigators, who solve a difficult murder mystery. A book hard to put down.

it is not a game at all. It's one murder...connected to another murder..connected to.....A call from Milo Sturgis, his detective buddy, alerts Alex to "a weird one"; the gutting of a quitarist outside the theatre where he is starring in his first comeback performance. His comeback song? A COLD HEART! While working on the first case... another murder, the garroting, with a quitar string, of a painter who has finally made the art scene...and a slaying shortly following of another rising artiste, again garroted with a quitar string; and so the doctor and the detective start to connect the dots in hopes of shaping a picture of this cold, calculating murderer.It was good to meet again Petra O'Connor, a character from Kellerman's novel BILLY STRAIGHT, who joins the two in their quest and we are off on another exciting 'search, chase and capture' scenario. And exciting, it is! As the doctor commandeers his computer expertise to delve into murders of the same ilk in the past; he is surpised and disturbed to learn that they are dealing with a physopathic killer whose own art-form is murder and who indeed has been practicing this art-form for many years. Petra has a new partner: silent, unresponsive, thoughtful; and we are given little teasing glimpses into his past. Eric Stahl is a story within a story and a very good one at that.Milo's character continues to grow (in size also if we believe you are what you eat) maybe that is why he becomes more 'seasoned' in each of Kellerman's books. He is rather endearing and it is a wonderful plus to Kellerman's expertise that he can write 18 Delaware novels and his characters are not static. Old ones too drop out, but new ones take their places. Robyn, his once live-in sweetheart is 'on leave' for what she thinks are greener pastures and is involved in a very clever way to this story line. I miss Spike but I hope that Alex and his no-nonsense, really likable, fully supportive new flame, Allison will find a replacement for the fiesty little bulldog who gave us a smile once in a while.Eighteen novels with the same central character and none of the savory zest and flavor is dulled...in fact,with each new effort of Kellerman's, Dr. Alex Delaware becomes more and more alive and his adventures more thrilling.

In this latest Alex Delaware novel, Alex breaks up with his longtime girlfriend, Robin, and takes up with a sexy woman psychologist named Allison. He assists pal Milo Sturgis and Detective Petra Connor (the heroine from `Billy Straight') on two seemingly unrelated murders - which become more related when he discovers similar unresolved crimes elsewhere in the nation using the internet.For some reason, Petra is given a zombie-like partner; a former Army investigator, Eric Stahl, who arrives with unseen skeletons tucked in his closet. He has the uncanny ability to spot stolen cars on the street just by looking at them. He has a disdain for women and conversation; yet he's the one to get the girl - and to become a hero at the story's end.A suspect emerges; an underachieving music groupie with homosexual tendencies. But, as in every Alex Delaware novel, the obvious isn't always what it seems. The murders, which accelerate, envelop artists just as their stalled careers are about to blossom, as if the killer is jealous of their anticipated success.The modus operendi for each crime appears to vary. Alex unlocks the murderer's thoughts. We get to see LA's glitzier and sleazier sides. And the team eats Indian food numerous times as they espouse and expand upon ever more gruesome theories.Robin falls into Alex's arms, crying at the conclusion. And, no, they don't get back together. (But there's always the next novel, right?)The paucity of early clues only serves to make the crime's solution seem more sagacious. `A Cold Heart' is a work as satisfying as any in the series. I highly recommend it.

The style of A Cold Heart brought back memories of Billy Straight which was the book that got me hooked on Jonathan Kellerman. I last read The Murder Book and was disappointed with its plodding style but not with this one. The sharp, quick action moves along at good clip and yet still adds descriptions which create vivid pictures in the mind. This story brings together all the characters in the other books and weaves them around a case which is solved by their cooperative work. I finished it in two sittings and was sorry it was over. This is my idea of a good read. I am glad there is a new love interest for Delaware finally. The on again, off again business with Robin was getting very boring. I look forward now to what ever comes next. Thanks, Mr. Kellerman for a good story, well told.

Jonathan Kellerman has written yet another page-turner mystery thriller centered around psychologist Alexander Delaware. As usual, Kellerman vividly draws the cast of supporting characters and, as might be expected from an author who is also a psychologist himself, his depictions of \ interactions between the characters abound with rich detail. In the present novel, ?A Cold Heart?, musicians and artists are being murdered, but are the possible connections between the crimes only illusions of coincidence or is a serial killer at work?Kellerman has taken pains over the past several years to ensure that this series of novels do not merely travel along in a comfortable rut. In ?Billy Straight? Kellerman abandoned his usual first person narrative through the eyes of Delaware to use a third person voice to tell his story from the perspectives of his title character, a runaway boy, and of Petra Connor, a police detective. In that novel, Delaware was relegated to a minor role. More recently in ?The Murder Book? Kellerman mixed his usual first person Delaware narrative with a third person voice from the viewpoint of Milo Sturgis, Delaware?s police detective friend. The author extends this technique in his latest novel, this time blending Delaware?s narrative with third person chapters primarily centered on Petra Connor, but occasionally switching to a broader viewpoint to depict other activities. Sporadically, the reader may become confused as to exactly who knows what at any given time, since there are multiple, overlapping investigations in progress, but eventually matters clarify on the way to a dramatic climax.There is another carryover from recent novels, too. Delaware?s relationship with his longtime live-in lover, Robin Castagna, has become increasingly strained and in ?A Cold Heart? this storyline is carried forward against a crime background that this time affects Robin directly, through her connections to the music world. I enthusiastically recommend this novel to confirmed fans of Kellerman?s Delaware novels, but because of plot elements that continue and develop through the series, I suggest readers new to Kellerman start with earlier books in the series and work their way forward.