The Murder Book

Rating:
Summary: WOW!!!! Kellerman returns to form!!!!
Review: After the last few books Kellerman wrote, Dr. Death was so awful that I didn't bother to read Flesh and Blood. I pick up Murder Book in the bookstore, read a few pages and I was hooked! I could not put the book down. Alex Delaware recieves a book filled with crime scene photos in the mail. He shows it to his friend, homicide detective, Milo Sturgis. It turns out one of the photos is of a girl murdered 20 years ago. It was one of Milo's first cases and the two friends set out to solve the very cold case.
I think the beauty of this book is that a lot of it is from Milo's point of view. That's something Kellerman has not done before. It is great to learn more about Milo. Until now we've only had Alex's view of the offf beat detective. Know we get to learn a little about Milo's history and a lot about his feeling about Alex.
This is one great read. Now I have to go out and buy a copy of Flesh and Blood...

Rating:
Summary: Better, But.........
Review: Proably the best Alex Delaware mystery since..... Well, at least since before the disastorous THE WEB. Kellerman must know he needs to do something, and this one has a new idea -- it features Milo in individual third-person scenes. And truth to tell, Milo comes off a lot better than Alex, who you really see as annoying and hard-headed.

In this one, Alex is sent a book of crime scene photogrpahs. One of them is from Milo's first, still unsolved, case. Milo is still troubled by it. Alex has time on his hands, so they're off on another adventure, involving the old murder, and its massive cover-up by the rich and powerful.

Much of the plot, which goes on at least a hundred pages too long (when did they stop editing Kellerman?) revolves around the paranoia of conspiracy and cover-up. If you believe that the execution-style slaying of an LAPD Internal Affairs officer could be concealed to the extent that the LA TIMES wouldn't even mention it, and that even LA cops wouldn't know about it, than maybe this will be OK with you, but rational minds will have a problem with it.

The chronology is forced and wrong. This is supposed to be a twenty-year old murder, but if Milo was a young detective three years out of Vietnam, it would have to be closer to thirty. and the aging problem of series characters has now taken over this series. Milo and Alex have to be pushing 60. Hard to place Alex as a romantic lead anymore; Milo has got to be well past LAPD retirement age for his grade.

And is this the kind of book that will bring new readership to the series? Will new readers thrill as Alex does a Google search? Will they hold their breath while Milo searches court records and calls DMV? Will they on be edge of their seat while Alex reads microfilmed newspapers in the library? Will they be cringing as Milo pours maple syrup on chocolate chip peanut butter pancakes.

Will please fans more than most recent outings; a great beach book.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: Another Alex Delaware book, and that series continues to be
interesting and thought-provoking.
This time, a detailed book of gruesome photos shows up in Alex's
mailbox, and he is shocked to see such detailed crime-scene
photos, some stretching back many years, while others seem
recent. He puzzles over why anyone would send him such a book,
so he has to show it to his detective-friend, who suddenly recognizes one of the photos of his very first murder-victim.
And Milo has to admit that case was never solved, and he tells
about how he and his partner were transferred off the case very
soon, and how that case seemed to disappear from police concern.
Since that case is 20 yrs old, both men have a difficult time
figuring out what they are supposed to do, but both start thinking and questioning, and the further back they go trying to
unravel the mystery, the worse it becomes.
Milo's police career suddenly seems threatened, and both men are
warned off further investigation of the case of the young girl
who was murdered in brutal circumstances.
But they key to the mystery is far back in time, and they keep
uncovering some bizarre connections with moneyed businessmen
and their spoiled-brat children, and they can't quite drop their
inquiries.
Very entertaining, and the only bump in the minds of some readers will be the very liberal, always-forgiving nature of
these men, when some of their forgiveness seems so unlikely.
Real cops and real investigators of the truth would have a much
more difficult time forgiving and forgetting than Alex and Milo
do, so that attitude calls for some extra open-mindedness.

Rating:
Summary: This series is growing hair
Review: Somewhere I read that most readers look for themselves in the fiction they choose. If that's the case, there's not much to relate to in THE MURDER BOOK. Alex Delaware is a Yuppie shrink, too concerned with cars, clothes, and fancy restaurants. His girlfriend, Robin, is an even greater bore, so self-possessed that she doesn't see anything wrong with taking off on a months-long rock tour. When Alex gets jealous because a man keeps answering her phone, she doesn't bother to explain that the man is a born-again Christian with a bunch of kids.
Thank God Kellerman varies the point of view in this one, switching between first-person Alex and third-person Milo Sturgis. Milo's background in the gay-bashing LAPD adds some interest.
The plot is convoluted and implausible. It starts twenty years before with the brutal murder of Janie Ingalls, a sixteen-year-old delinquent. It's Milo's first homicide and he's teamed with Detective Pierce Schwinn, a drug-addicted loner with a fondness for prostitutes. Before Milo can even begin to investigate, he's grilled by a team of Internal Affairs officers who want to know if he's aware of Schwinn's illicit activity. Afterwards, he's abruptly transferred to another division.
As the story begins, somebody sends Alex a scrap book, full of gruesome pictures, one of which is Janie Ingalls's scalped, cigarette-burned corpse.
Things are further complicated by the fact that one of the Internal Affairs officers is now the police commissioner. Alex and Milo think he covered up the murder as a favor for some rich developers whose sons were responsible for the girl's death. The other characters include a drug-addicted black man who may have observed the murder; a [handicapped] sister of two of the spoiled rich kids; a handicapped psychologist, who's everybody's benefactor; a billionaire land developer who wants to bring a football team back to Los Angeles, and a female horse rancher who had married the now-deceased Schwinn after the psychologist had weaned him off drugs. His death is also suspicious; he'd been thrown from a usually docile horse.
Back to the subplot, the lovers' quarrel. Looks like it's the end of the road for Robin and Alex. There's a new girl in town, Dr. Allison Gwynn, who's making eyes at Alex. But you'll have to wait for the next one to see where that goes. I think I'll pass.

Rating:
Summary: Page Turner, TERRIFIC plotted whodoneit
Review: I sat up all night and read this one in a single 'sitting'. Could not put it down. Very well written. I am new to Mr. Kellerman's work, and have also read Cold Heart which I read in two sittings (had work to do -- smile), and am buying more of his work. As good as the Raymond Chandler and P.D. James books for sure. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Defenestrate this book
Review: That's what I did once I had finished it. Unfortunately, I live on the first floor, but wished that I lived on the tenth so that the book (and all of its hollow stereotypically characters) could have the time to contemplate how it had misused my time before it was dashed to pieces. A pack of dingoes to rend it completely, Bradbury's firemen to burn the kerosene soaked pieces and multiple horesemen to carry the remaining ashes to the four corners of the globe would have been an even sweeter revenge. This book stands for everything that readers hate about best sellers and must have been karmic punishment. Rather than read the book, please take several Percoset and five tumblers of Jack Daniels. The synaptic loss will be equivalent and if you never wake up, no big deal. The only reason that I finished it was to see how bad it could get. My reaction is mentioned in the "review" title.

Rating:
Summary: Annother fine Kellerman offering!
Review: This novel delivers in every way! It starts with a hook that makes you simply HAVE to turn the pages. The character development is as always with Mr. Kellerman, superb! As in any series, it is always great to revisit "old friends" in terms of the main characters, and learn new things about them. This book has a great beginning, middle and end...what more can you ask for? I don't give out plot information in my reviews, I only say that this book is definitely a must-have for any Kellerman fan or any suspense novel fan as well. Kudos to Kellerman!

Rating:
Summary: Horrible Book
Review: This book is really bad. The author goes out of his way with descriptors--to the point where I'm really bored. In fact, mid-way through the book, I came to expect long paragraphs of mindless adjectives. Even when the characters are developed, there's STILL long diatribes about what they're thinking. Hey Kellerman, give us readers some credit for having a little imagination of our own. (Does he include all the description, so he can sell it to Hollywood??)
Definitely "pass" on this one....

Rating:
Summary: Classic Delaware with Extra Milo
Review: Let me start by saying that if you like the Alex Delaware series, you're going to like this book. All the elements are there: observant Alex, spinning his theories; the psychologists'-eye view of the universe; adult characters warped by childhood traumas. In addition, the book takes the series onto new ground. More than ever, we see Alex's weaknesses, both through his own eyes as he surveys the damage he's wrought to his relationship with Robin, his long-term love, and through those of his detective friend Milo, who serves as an alternative viewpoint character. We also see Alex contrasted to a superbly caring older psychologist named Bert-a colorful character who sees only magenta, black, and white, and who's appeared in at least one prior book.

But I can't give this book five stars, even though I myself am a professional fiction writer who owes a debt to Kellerman. There are two moderately large problems.

The first of the large ones is the decision to use Milo as an alternative viewpoint character. A book told entirely from Milo's viewpoint would be very interesting. But this one alternates Alex's first-person point of view with Milo's third-person viewpoint. It's an interesting experiment but inherently doomed. First-person POV weds the reader solidly to a single character. However interesting Milo's POV is (and he's a great viewpoint character), the switch from Alex is jarring. Kellerman is boldly attempting to break free of the mold he's cast for himself, but the mold is too strong.

The second problem is the Murder Book of the title. Other reviews have explained what it is, so I won't repeat. Suffice it to say that it's an extremely indirect attempt to communicate a message to Milo, via Alex. But it always felt like artificial-too much like a story in which a dying character, instead of naming his killer directly, reveals it in code. Kellerman needed to make me believe that the book's author had no option but to speak so indirectly. I didn't buy it.

Still, Kellerman is always a good read. He's an astute observer of culture, behavioral quirks, and the dark side of contemporary LA. Ultimately, it didn't matter that much that I didn't care about the villain's identity. In a book like this, it's the trip that matters, not the destination, and the trip wasn't bad at all. Four stars.

Rating:
Summary: The Murder Book
Review: There are two reasons that I always enjoy the Alex Delaware books - Milo and Spike. This book definitely gives the reader plenty of Milo but Spike is sorely missing. The book, as all of Kellermans stories, kept me reading well into the night but by the time I was finished my head was spinning with trying to keep all the characters straight in my mind. I also found the ending to be rather abrupt and disappointing. Definitely not one of my favorite Alex Delaware books.