Rating: 
Summary: Insightful and Entertaining
Review: Jonathan Kellerman continues his successful Alex Delaware series with this story of self-forgiveness and redemption. Ten years ago Alex treated a precocious and defiant 15 year old who dropped out of treatment after a couple of sessions. She returned six years later after Alex had seen her acting as the main event at a bachelor's party and confronted him with what he saw. His need to expiate his feelings of guilt and shame served as the prime motivation to find out what happenned to her when she turns up missing four years later. What follows is vintage Kellerman: the psychological insights, the complex, thought-provoking plot, and the ability to delineate characters with description, dialogue and behavior. Kellerman's training as a psychologist gives Alex Delaware an educated perspective and insight of the world and characters with which he lives. His interview technique is skillful and artistic and after he speaks with an important character Alex offers analysis and description of the character's personality traits. FLESH AND BLOOD is one of Kellerman's best. At times it is erotic, educational and suspenseful, but is always entertaining and satisfying. Highly Recommended !!!
Rating: 
Summary: Just what I wanted for a long flight!
Review: Over the years, I've enjoyed the Alex Delaware novels, in the way that one enjoys hearing of the latest exploits of an eccentric uncle---nothing heavyweight, always entertaining. Preparing for a three week journey with 33 teenagers to the British Isles, including a nine hour flight, I knew just where to look on the bestseller racks, and this is the one I brought. Any reader of this series will begin to recognize some of the devices Kellerman always employs in his stories--detailed physical descriptions of each character that leave nothing to imagination, the travels throughout LA mentioned by another reviewer, and the backstory and references to events in previous novels in the series. I am convinced that everyone who has read two or more of these novels could, when asked, draw a picture of Detective Milo Sturgis, and regardless of artistic ability, all drawings would be identical. Despite these eccentricities of writing style, Kellerman again delivers what most of his readers seek, involved convoluted plots based on the patients child psychologist Alex Delaware has treated that ultimately dabble in the human psyche. In this one, a troubled young woman whom he treated briefly as a teen, but who apparently was deeply affected by her short time with him, turns up brutally murdered as a young adult. Detective Milo eventually takes on this case that was first brought to his attention by Alex when she turns up missing. The storyline takes twists and turns alternately between the worlds of the sex industry and experimental psychology, dovetailing the two worlds in a plot twist that Delaware fans will enjoy second guessing. Even being relatively unfamiliar with the personal details of Hugh Hefner's life, I also thought the similarity of Tony Duke was striking, and maybe a bit disappointing. Kellerman certainly could have invented a character that was a bit more original, but really, character is less his forte than plotting, so I forgive him that flaw. I think it is a credit to his plotting that although by this point in time I have read nearly all the Alex Delaware novels, I still needed to be at least two thirds through the book before I'd made most of the inevitable connections that are revealed in the last chapters of the book. After all, isn't that the mark of a good page turner? The ability to engage the reader into trying to figure out the plot before the last page? If that's what you as a reader are seeking, without having to challenge a jet-lagged, travel weary mind too much, look no further.
Rating:
Summary: His Best Since "Self-Defense"....
Review: The Alex Delaware of old is back in Kellerman's new novel. The last four in the series have been very disappointing to many of his long time fans, and Kellerman goes back to basics with this tale of a disappearance/murder that personally affects the good doc, since it happened to a former patient that he was never able to reach. In the novel, the old obsessive compulsive Alex Delaware surfaces again. He takes the crime personally, and continues to follow up some blind alleys, driving both Milo and Robin crazy with his inability to let it go. His instincts are basically good, however, and you second guess the multitude of possible outcomes all the way through the book's end. It feels as though Kellerman has decided to ground the doctor in the type of cases and well-intentioned investigations he crafted for Delaware in the early books of the series. It is good to have the real Alex back, and to have Kellerman fully flesh out a story, unlike the botched and tedious plots of "Monster" and "The Web". With this book, Kellerman wins back a fan!
Rating: 
Summary: Very intriguing
Review: There is not one boring spot in this engrossing novel of using your mind. Alex Delaware sets off on another mystery and a mystery it is until the very end (unless you are the smartest person alive). I wish I could come up with an intricate as plot as Flesh and Blood has. It may not be that original, but the characters and setting are one of a kind. It is an easy read yet a hard thinker. For those who like figuring out mysteries, you will have a hard time with this one. Praise Jonathan Kellerman.
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