Customer Reviews

Dr. Death (Alex Delaware)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Tony Award-winner John Rubinstein has read the audio book versions of each of Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware novels. "Performed" might be a more appropriate word than "read" as his deliveries are riveting. (Need we say that Kellerman, a master of the psychological thriller, writes can't-put-down tales?)

There's a diabolical twist in this story as the man some have described as a killer is killed - Dr. Eldon Mate, a proponent of euthanasia, is murdered in the back of his own vehicle, attached to the mechanism he has used to assist others in ending their lives.

Of course, the LAPD seeks assistance from Dr. Alex Delaware who has a few qualms of his own regarding the case.

Rife with menacing characters and psychological detail, "Dr. Death" is Kellerman at the peak of his authorial prowess. In the case of the audiobook Rubinstein's emotionally intense voice is frosting on this devil's food cake.

Dr. Eldon Mate, better known as Dr. Death, helps with the aid of killing terminally ill people, but when he is found butchered in his DEATH van, Milo Sturgis and Alex Delaware are called onto the case to find out who killed the killer.

As Delaware and Sturgis begin looking into the dark corners of the late Dr. Death's life they find any number of suspects...from relatives of those he killed, to his own family members.

"Dr. Death" is a disappointment from this bestselling author; the novel has too many characters, and drags on SLOWLY in too many spots. Fans of the previous novels in this series will be bored with this new book.

Jonathan Kellerman has been the leading practioner of the pyschological thriller, but with his last few novels he is losing steam...his novels are no longer the page-turners they once were, instead they are slowly paced character studies with some suspense thrown in.

Nick Gonnella

Dr. Eldon Mate, also known as "Dr. Death", is not a very popular guy. With his "humanitron", he assists those who wish to die achieve their goals in a "humane and dignified manner"...even if sometimes he leaves the bodies in cheap hotel rooms for someone to find. Most would consider it a very good day when Mate's body is found, brutally butchered inside his own van, hooked up to the "humanitron". It is far too obvious to Detective Milo Sturgis and his long-time confidant, Dr. Alex Delaware, that Mate didn't die in the most humane way. Nor did he "off himself" with his own machine. Their investigation leads them down many paths...chasing numerous suspects and cogitating just as many motives.

As a long-time fan of Kellerman's "Alex Delaware" series, this reader has analyzed the reasons "Dr. Death", and Kellerman's previous novel, "Monster", don't live up to Kellerman's obvious potential. When Kellerman was writing what he knows, and that is child psychology, his writing shines with knowledge and suspense. Delaware had a personal interest in not only his patients, but the victims of the tragedies that beset them. In more recent novels, Kellerman drifts away from the comfort zone and into areas that are already deluged with stories...most of them better plotted, and well-thought out. While "Dr. Death" has its moments, with some well-spoken phrases and vivid scenes, his stories lack real depth. Where once his passion was his motivation, now it's as if he's just some guy sitting behind a desk thinking up stories. "Dr. Death" is socially relevant to our times, but tends to become a bit preachy, and long-winded in spots. The child characters seem mere cardboard cutouts, gratuitous and out of place in "Dr. Death". Kellerman disappoints with this latest story. It barely held my interest long enough to find out whodunnit.

Dr. Death (aka Dr. Eldon Mate) is responsible for many assisted suicides. Dr. Mate is brutually murdered and the story revolves around who killed the doctor. There are too many extraneous plots and suspects. I felt that these were techniques used to only add pages to the storyline and to add a little suspense here and there. By page 116 (out of 352 pages) I was beginning not to care who did it. I am a great fan of Jonathan Kellerman, particularly the Alex Delaware series, and have read all of his books. This book is not his best and definitely not of the high standards as his other psychological thrillers.

Dr. Alex Delaware returns in another satisfying read by Jonathan Kellerman. As usual Dr. Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis work together with ease, comfort and mutual respect. This time Alex has to wrestle with conflicts between doctor/patient confidentiality and his working and personal relationship with Milo. The book also raises issues regarding euthanasia after the murder of a Kevorkian-like character. Like many people, both Kellerman and Alex have conflicting feelings regarding the right-to-death movement and particularly the way it has played out in the Netherlands. I found this Delaware mystery particularly enjoyable because Kellerman stayed away from explosions and car chases and instead dealt more with the psychology of the characters. This is what makes Kellerman unique as a writer and when he strays far from this (the unreadable The Web) he loses sight of his wonderful talents. While this is not the best of the Delaware mysteries it is a strong entry in the series. Alex and Milo continue to be two of the most fascinating and real characters in mystery fiction today.

I really enjoyed this psychological thriller primarily because of the skill Kellerman uses to develop the plot and to describe the characters and their motivations, beliefs, behaviors... their personalities. He provides the best of both worlds. He presents a crime and works toward its solution by using Milo Sturgis and standard police techniques. He also creates characters, both victims and suspects, and allows the reader to see them through the unique psychological perspective of Alex Delaware. We are privy to Delaware's impressions about the psychological dynamics of the characters: of Dr. Eldon Mate, the man who killed dying patients and is now a murder victim; and several suspects, especially Eric and Stacy Doss, tormented children of a woman who appears to have been one of Dr. Death's victims.

The reader is able to sit in on psychotherapy sessions and listen to Delaware as he helps clients face their fears as he explores their pathology. We also follow him as he reviews the files of a serial killer and develops his own ideas of who killed Dr. Death and why.

Jonathan Kellerman expertly educates and entertains the reader in the worlds of crime and psychology. He has advanced the police procedural by adding the interesting but often misunderstood applied field of psychology,i.e. psychotherapy. Dr. Death may not be his best but it still very good and definitely worth reading.

Dr. Eldon Mate, a self-styled Dr. Death, is found brutally murdered. Alex Delaware immediately thinks of Richard Doss, the father of one of Delaware's former patients. It seems that Dr. Death helped Doss' wife commit suicide and Doss hates Dr. Death. But as Delaware and Milo Sturgis dig further small ireggularities start to emerge. Why was Doss' wife found dead in a motel room while all of Dr. Death's other assisted suicides were found in rental vans? Why didn't Dr. Death step forward and claim responsibility for Doss' wife like he did in all of his other assisted suicides? And finally, who is Fusco, the renegade FBI agent who brings details of yet another killer who may have wanted to usurp Dr. Death?

Like all Jonathan Kellerman novels this one is well-plotted. Mr. Kellerman knows how to parcel out the clues and he does it honestly. When the murderer is finally revealed you can always go back and see just where it makes sense and how the clues really did point to that particular person, even though they didn't seem to at the time. Kellerman is also good at characterization and to me all of his characters ring true, even the minor ones. I think the only quibble anyone might have is how in real life a psychologist really wouldn't be able to get this involved with a police investigation. But hey, this is fiction. If I can believe a little old lady like Miss Marple can solve mysteries I can certainly go along with Mr. Kellerman. All in all, a good book. Head and shoulders above most of the mysteries being cranked out today. I recommend it highly.

The writing style of this book is so much poorer than the previous books in this series, that I have to wonder if either (a) someone else wrote it, or (b) the author has a new editor.

All the characters sound exactly the same - you can't tell when Milo is speaking, vs. when it's Alex. And neither of them sounds realistic. There are many short sentences and sentence fragments, as if someone were trying to imitate Hemingway.

Near the beginning, Milo and Alex are at the crime scene, and we read Milo saying,

"Forgive the peckishness. I need sleep." Yet another glance at the Timex.

Huh? Peckishness? This doesn't sound like Milo at ALL.

The ending is unrealistic as well, the villain someone unexpected, for a ridiculous reason. And Alex doesn't turn them in, either.

In between the beginning and the end, we have occasional cursory sex scenes, badly written, between Alex and Robin. Robin, too, sounds just like Alex and Milo. And the sex bits are not consistent with anything in the previous books.

I suspect the book will sell well anyway, because people automatically buy things by an author they like, but it will be a disappointment. I will hesitate before buying the next one, if Kellerman has truly gone downhill like this.

For the past few Delaware books, the structure has been tediously similar: Alex (with or without Milo) goes from person to person and asks questions. Eventually, he figures out who the killer is, there is a single action scene and then it ends.

Alex is getting to be less and less of a character. His girlfriend serves almost no purpose to the story, not even as a sounding board. In this story, even the concluding action scene is pretty minor, and in the only other scene of any real violence, Alex is threatened with no more than a sore jaw.

Billy Straight shows that Kellerman still knows what he's doing, but the Delaware books seem to just go through the motions. It's time for either rebirth or retirement for this series.

I have always liked Dr. Alex Delaware. He is a sensitive and compassionate psychologist and amateur detective. Delaware's back, helping Detective Milo Sturgis solve the grisly murder of "Dr. Death," whose real name is Eldon Mate. Mate is an assisted-suicide doc who specializes in hastenening people to their final journey. Wo killed and mutilated Mate? The list of suspects mounts throughout the book. Is the murderer a relative of one of Dr. Death's victims? Or the murdererer the son of the deceased, angry at Dad for rejecting him? To make things more complicated, Sturgis and Delaware find out that there is another Dr. Death around. This person also has an M. D.; he is a man who enjoys killing people even though they are not necessarily ready to die. There is a possiblity that this other Dr. Death knew Eldon Mate. What was their relationship? The problem with this novel is that it is overstuffed with too many characters and too many plot lines. Delaware floats through the book interviewing suspects, trying to put two and two together, and the ending turns out to be more than a little bizarre. Too bad, because some of the characters are interesting and well-drawn. Others are just cardboard cut-outs, thrown into the mix to thicken the plot. "Dr. Death" is so-so as a suspense novel. It starts out better than it ends.