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: 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: Novel has obvious flaws in plot and structure.
Review: The Murder Book is one in a long series featuring Alex Delaware, and only the second I've read, and most likely the last. Kellerman does a good job characterizing Alex and gay friend Milo, but the plot is so full of contrivances and holes that it made this book very dissapointing.
The book opens with Alex receiving a book with pictures of crime scenes in it dating 20 to 40 years old. Alex calls Milo over to look at it and Milo instantly recognizes one of the pictures in there. It is of Janie Ingalls, a case he never solved. Milo then recalls the case and the investigation with his partner Schwinn in flashback style. Milo and Schwinn are pulled off the case just as they gather some clues and Milo has been bothered by it ever since.
Schwinn has a source who says the Ingalls girl may have been at a party thrown by a bunch of rich kids. In the present day, Milo and Alex begin investingating the rich kids the Cossacks and their friends Michael Larner and Vance Coury. It seems like for 200 pages they investigate the rich kids befor the dead Ingalls girl is mentioned again.
The link between the murder of the Ingalls girl and then the long drawn out investigation of the Cossacks and Larners and everything that stems from that is tenious at best. The book kind of glances over this part at the beginning, indicating Schwinn had a source who said there was a wild party at a house owned by the Cossacks. Alex and Milo believe Ingalls and her friend may have attended the party but have no proof or real reason to believe this. My problem is that every step that Alex and Milo take in their investigation is circumstancial, not confirmed by any hard facts.
Milo and Alex do a lot of investigating, but none of their suspicions are ever confirmed by hard evidence. The trail of crime from the Cossacks is so drawn out its hard to remember at times what the original investigation was. Also, there is never really any contact with the bad guys at all in the book. Then, the book ends with the horrible method of long explanation. Milo talks with a man who basically explains everything to him about what really happened. Milo knew some of it through his tedious investigations, but the rest is confirmed in the end.
I haven't read much of this series, so I don't know much about the Bert Harrison character. But it seems to be far fetched that a fatherly figure to Alex could be the psychiatrist to so many main characters in this book. It seems like a cheap plot device to hand Alex the answers he is looking for.
In the end I was very disappointed because Kellerman is obviously a good writer. I just don't know what he was thinking when he threw this plot together.
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!
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