The Conspiracy Club

I almost never make a big deal about the number of Stars I rate a book, or any other product. The content of my reviews is what counts - that's what's most important. In the case of Jonathan Kellerman's "The Conspiracy Club," I make an exception. I think this chilling mystery is an excellent read, and would normally rate it 4 or 4.5 stars. (It is Olympic Game season and I feel like a figure skating judge!!). However, the novel is so original and intelligently written, refreshingly so, that it deserves 5 Stars all the way!! To begin with, there is little, if any violence, blood or gore in the narrative. Almost everything traumatic is implied, not explicit - for a change. This subtle approach to brutality makes the violence seem more spooky, more mysterious than usual. The reader's imagination is almost always more fertile than the written word - unless the author is Edgar Allan Poe. And Kellerman builds suspense, little by little, to a crescendo finale. Character study is very important to this psychological thriller. And again, the author excels in character development, especially that of his protagonist, Dr. Jeremy Carrier, a young psychologist at City Central Hospital. Carrier is a moral man, seemingly, dedicated to his profession and patients. He also appears to be a really nice guy. Six months earlier, his live-in girlfriend, Jocelyn Banks, a nurse at the same hospital, was horribly murdered, her mutilated body dumped under a bridge in a run-down area of town. Jeremy had been very much in love with her and broods over his loss and the cruelly sadistic manner of her death. The investigating detectives have targeted him as a murder suspect, even though there is no evidence of his involvement, whatsoever. This exacerbates his suffering. When more women begin turning up dead, obviously the work of the same psychopathic killer, the police come looking for Dr. Carrier - questioning him - turning up the pressure. Coinciding with this traumatic period, Dr Arthur Chess, an elderly but still vigorous pathologist, seeks Jeremy out, apparently wanting to be his friend. Chess is retired, but he is so prominent in his field, and has contributed so much to City Central that he is allowed to maintain his office there. Arthur Chess is a wonderful character - bizarre, wise, extremely mysterious, at times humorous and fascinated with "psychology's views on violence. Specifically, the genesis of very bad behavior" - not evil. "Evil is a.... weighty word. Theologically burdened. I believe we'd settled upon 'very bad behavior.'" He makes statements throughout like, "A stranger to fear is a stranger to conscience." But he never follows through. He never tells Jeremy what he is alluding to. One evening Chess invites Carrier to a special dinner in a private, extremely elegant, out-of-the-way venue. There he is introduced to a group of friends - six in all, including Arthur - who have something in common besides their professional backgrounds and elevated statu

This is the best novel Kellerman has written in a long time. It has less gore and more mystery. I love having to follow the trail of nuggets left by the older physician for the protagonist. The protagonist goes from clue to clue, doubting at first, but believing and solving in the end. A very satisfying story.

I also did not know I'd be missing Dr. Delaware in this book. I was quite happy to embrace a new protagonist. Jeremy is so very human in all his feelings and responses. I enjoyed seeing him become interested in Dr. Chess despite his earlier standoffishness. I think that it is a mistake to expect an author to continue churning out books all using the same protagonist. I like the fact that Mr. Kellerman has chosen someone new, whether we see him again or not!

I'm a big Alex Delaware fan, so I was unsure what to expect from this new Kellerman. But it turned out to be a great read. Really enjoyed it!

The first Jonathan Kellerman book I ever read did not feature Alex Delaware. It was a novel titled THE BUTCHER'S THEATER, and though I read it almost 15 years ago, I can still remember passages of that book as if I had read them yesterday. I've read almost all of Kellerman's fiction since that time, including every Delaware novel, so I approached THE CONSPIRACY CLUB with some mixed feelings. I was slightly disappointed that this was not going to be another Delaware novel. But Kellerman's work, whether it involves Delaware or not, is so uniformly excellent that a deviation from his normal characterization would almost certainly be interesting.Now, having spent a day or so reading THE CONSPIRACY CLUB, I can tell those of you who are diehard Delaware fans that, if you skip this excellent novel because Alex Delaware is not in it, you are cheating yourself. And if you're not already a fan of Kellerman, THE CONSPIRACY CLUB is the key to becoming one. Notwithstanding my familiarity with Kellerman's work, I felt as if I was discovering a debut novel by a new author who had studied at the feet of the masters and was channeling them.The book is excellent in every way. The characters are unforgettable, the dialogue is witty when it should be and dark when appropriate. The plotting is so intelligent yet straightforward that you'll walk away from this great novel feeling smarter than you did when you first picked it up.THE CONSPIRACY CLUB introduces Dr. Jeremy Carrier, a young staff psychologist at City Central Hospital in an unnamed Midwest city. Carrier is carrying around a boatload of grief since his passionate but all-too brief affair with a nurse named Jocelyn Banks was abruptly ended by her kidnapping and brutal murder. Carrier was initially a suspect in Banks's unsolved slaying, and Detective Bob Doresh has a disconcerting habit of popping into the hospital at odd times to ask Carrier off-kilter questions, just to let Carrier know that he's still under the magnifying glass. When another woman is murdered in an eerily and similarly grisly fashion, Doresh seems to be taking more than a polite interest in Carrier, a circumstance that creates even more sorrow and confusion for him. This is counterbalanced --- barely --- by Carrier's slowly developing relationship with Angela Rios, a hospital resident whose slow but sure emotional succor seems to put him on the road to recovery.At the same time, an elderly, somewhat eccentric physician named Dr. Arthur Chess begins to take a gently incessant interest in Carrier. This interest culminates with Chess inviting Carrier to a mysterious late night formal supper. Chess and the other four guests, all individuals of wildly disparate backgrounds, treat Carrier well. He cannot help but feel, however, that he is there more to be observed and evaluated than anything else.Almost simultaneously Carrier begins to receive a mysterious series of seemingly unconnected articles and messages through the hospital mailing system,