Customer Reviews

Gone (Alex Delaware, No. 20)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I looked forward to this book, bought it the day of release, but was disappointed. On a relative scale, a below-par Jonathan Kellerman book it still better than most mystery/thrillers -- nevertheless, given the high standard that Kellerman has created for himself, it is a "3" compared to the "5"s of his other books. Why? (1) I identified the villain early, and Alex and Milo seemed oddly blinkered; (2)I'm not sure why, but the book seemed emotionless (more than usual) - I just didn't care about the vics, or for that matter, Milo and Alex; (3) a subplot that felt like padding; (4) I'm tired of the Robin/Allison thing and reading this book made me realize that neither one has much character beyond the purely physical descriptions (5)most of all, I see no character development over of the many books, and I think that an Alex Delaware with no inner life in book 20 is a lot less interesting than an Alex Delaware several books ago, before this was apparent. He is very passive, and his back-and-forth between Robin and Allison almost seems to be a matter of indifference to him, not to mention all of the victims.

Time for a reality check. Jonathan Kellerman's 20th "Alex Delaware" murder mystery, Gone, is a disappointing yarn. It falls short of satisfaction on several counts.

The last 35 pages of the book are anticlimactic. After the killers are captured, it takes Mr. Kellerman an inordinately long time to write "Finis" to this work.

Kellerman is obsessed with describing, in boring detail, the clothes people wear, the houses they live in, the furniture in these houses, and other repetitious minutiae.

Another weakness is the glacial pace taken by clinical psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware and his longtime pal, L.A. homicide detective Lieut. Milo Sturgis, to locate the serial killer on their radar screen.

Meanwhile, we, the readers, are yelling at them, "Look there! Look there!" but they are frustratingly oblivious to the obvious. When Milo and Alex finally take a suspicious look at the sociopath--"poison palming itself off as perfume," we mutter, "It's about time!"

The plot of Gone revolves around wannabe thespians who are drawn, like moths to a flame, to Hollywood's fantasy world and become victims of a psychopathic predator. The victims of choice are beautiful young blondes such as Michaela Brand and Tori Giacomo.

At the novel's climax, Delaware and Sturgis discover the predator's lair and gruesome evidence of brutal scenes of horror. But what were the killer's motives? Gone is both a whodunit and a "whydunit."

A strong point of Gone is Kellerman's engaging descriptions of the camaraderie between Delaware and Sturgis. We chuckle often at their playful banter. And we are impressed by their dogged pursuit of seemingly tangential clues.

The bad news, again, is that this police procedural is fristratingly repetitive. Typically, after Delaware and Sturgis interview suspects, relatives, acquaintances, and other persons of interest, they meet, usually at a restaurant to assuage Sturgis's gargantuan appetite, and construct hypothetical scenarios of the crime. This process occurs so often that we feel trapped in the twilight zone of an eternal recurrence.

Gone is not really a bad novel. It's just not all that great. Wait for the paperback edition.

Jonathan Kellerman's first Alex Delaware novel, When the Bough Breaks, was published in 1985. Other novels in this series are Monster, Dr. Death, Over the Edge, and Therapy. Mr. Kellerman lives in California and New Mexico.

Roy E. Perry of Nolensville (rperry1778@aol.com) is an advertising copywriter at a Nashville publishing house.

The appeal for me of the Alex Delaware series is the addition of psychological complexity brought by the psychologist main character to a fairly standard mystery thriller. In addition, having been a former Los Angeles resident, I enjoy reading about LA locations, restaurants. I have read all of the series from the beginning and read each one as they come out.

Kellerman continues to deliver a fine quality of writing and an unusual psychologically disturbing plot. I think that the character is experiencing some mid-life crisis which causes some staleness to the character. Either Kellerman is losing some interest, or it is time for the character to go thru some major changes--which could cause loss of readership.

It must be difficult to write a series of books about the same character year after year. Do you stick to your formula and write the same novel with different details? Or do you allow the character to change like a human person.

Overall I was not as interested in this book--but again, I am not sure if I am tired of Alex or if the author is tired of Alex. An adequate plane read or second book.

I'm really puzzled by other reviewers' responses to "Gone." I thought it was one of the best Alex Delaware yarns in years! Only one thing kept this from being rated 5 stars in my view, and that is, again (I've mentioned it in every review), the tedious, over-the-top description of every single street by name as though every reader in the world lived in Los Angeles. I DID live in Los Angeles, was raised there, and it bothers ME.

That having been said, I found the story more intricate and faster-paced than usual. I suspected who the killer was, but was very interested in how the ends would tie together, what the motive might have been, and so forth--and to me, there were certainly surprises galore when it came to who, how, when, where, and etc.

Unlike other readers, I was interested in the Allison/Robin relationships, and did not find them cold. Kellerman is not a romance writer; the murders are always the major subject. My BIG question is how Milo's handsome, put-together surgeon companion stays with MILO, a big, sloppy, compulsive overeater. But I guess that's for another book.

All in all, I found it a quick and fun read.

Some time ago I came across an academic essay that analyzed the commercial ascendance of the thriller in print and film. The author praised several writers -- Lehane, Connelly, Rankin -- and dismissed the rest of the pack as "purveyors of mediocrity," which struck me as a bit pretentious. Only two or three names were singled out for outright contempt; "B-lister" Jonathan Kellerman was one of these.

I've been meaning since then to flip through/subject myself to a Kellerman book. On reading GONE this weekend, I understood immediately why he represents the bottom of the barrel: The novel just doesn't work. Its characters are transparently dull -- the narrator so much so that I kept forgetting the story was being told in the first person -- and its action lacking (about 85% of the book takes place in a police car). Worst of all is the plot: It's obvious who the killer is as soon as he's introduced, yet the detectives never even suspect him. And Kellerman fails to establish how ANY of the victims were associated with each other -- one is traced back to a theater workshop in LA, but the rest are never accounted for. The "let's get a puppy!" ending is the crowning insult.

Kellerman also seems to think (I'm speculating here, of course) that he's got some kind of insight into . . . let's see here: the "secret chambers" of the human psyche -- this because he was at one point a therapist for children. I'm not passing judgment on that profession, but Kellerman's every inquiry into his characters' minds is facile, boring, and completely without texture. The killer's pathology fails to convince. The leads' personalities are dull and duller, respectively.

Paper-thin, turgid, badly plotted, and flat-out flat. Nice jacket, though.

There was once a time when picking up a new Jonathan Kellerman book was a real treat, but his recent books have been hit and miss, with unfortunately more of the latter. Gone, his twentieth novel featuring Alex Delaware, is not a bad book - and it may be better than some of his other recent efforts - but it is also nothing special.

In Gone, Delaware is hired to do a psychological evaluation of Michaela Brand, a young wannabe actress who is facing criminal charges after perpetrating a hoax; she pretended to be kidnapped along with her fellow student Dylan Meserve. The evaluation goes well enough and she pleas to a misdemeanor and is sentenced to community service. All's well that ends well, or such is the case until she is found brutally murdered and Dylan has disappeared.

Delaware joins his cop friend Milo Sturgis in the investigation. The case leads them to the school they both attended with its flaky owner/instructor, Nora Dowd. Nora opens up other avenues of possibilities, including her brothers Brad and Billy and a possibly dangerous janitor named Reynold Peaty.

While all this is going on, Alex is also involved with a court case involving inappropriate behavior by a psychologist, a case that will be more of a hassle that he originally thinks. He is also torn between two lovers, old flame Robin and newer girlfriend Allison.

As is typically the case with the recent Delaware novels, the main mystery is fine if unspectacular, but the main problem is with Alex himself, who is not nearly as interesting as he used to be. Of late, he is almost a non-character and any attempt to develop him seems forced. For example, the romance subplot feels almost tacked on. In recent novels, Robin (in particular) seemed to serve no other function than an obligatory sex scene, which made her departure seem unimportant. Things are a little better in Gone, but Kellerman still has a way to go to really go from average to good. In addition, there is no real supporting cast other than Milo (Robin and Allison are too unimportant) to add substance to these books.

Kellerman actually continues to be a really entertaining writer, as Twisted (one of his recent non-Delaware books) shows. It's Delaware that's the problem, as this series begins to tire out. Maybe he can revitalize it, but I'm not sure. It's unfortunate, because it used to be a good series. If you're going to sample Kellerman for the first time, my recommendation is to read some of his earlier books. Alternatively, try his wife, Faye, whose writing is actually getting better as the years go by, or Stephen White, whose Alan Gregory books - also featuring a psychologist, but are much more entertaining. Gone, however, is strictly three-star material.

One thing I hate is not finishing a book, but I got half way through this, and had to put it away. I felt it was a chore to pick it up just to read a few pages. There was absolutely no excitement or power to this book. Definitely not recommended.

I confess that I'm not a big fan of Jonathon Kellerman. I've `read' a few of his novels, many of them as audio books. The audio book selection at my library is limited, particularly when it comes to unabridged novels (I refuse to listen to an abridged recording). As a result I listen to a lot of books that I would probably never get around to reading otherwise.

My biggest beef with Kellerman is his obsession with inane detail. Each new character that is introduced is described ad nauseum (what they are wearing head to toe, every facial feature, where they are standing in relation to every piece of furniture in the room, and so on). Kellerman is one of those authors who could learn something from Elmore Leonard.

Perhaps one reason I am not a big fan of Jonathon Kellerman is that I am really not a big fan of the police procedural detective novel. The best of these novels rarely warrant much more than 3 stars (This one just barely scores 3 stars). In most of them, as it is in this novel, it's pretty obvious who the killer is going to turn out to be. The plot generally boils down to a series of suspect interviews that get repetitious, until the detective finally manages to piece together a solution that the reader saw coming hundreds of pages earlier.

That said; I like the relationship between Delaware and Sturgis as they trudge their way through this mystery. They have a comfortable rapport. Their banter sounds natural, not forced, and it can be quite amusing. In particular, I appreciate Sturgis's sarcasm.

Another strong point in support of this series is that Alex Delaware is actually convincing as a psychologist (unlike, say James Patterson's Alex Cross).

Gone isn't terrible. There's just nothing memorable about it. I 'read' Gone a couple of weeks ago and frankly, I'm already starting to forget what it was about. If you like police procedural novels, I recommend you pass over Kellerman, and pick up something by Michael Connelly.

I am an avid Johnathan Kellerman fan and I am always anxiously waiting for his next novel to be released. That said, this was not a favorite of mine. I found the story to be far to complicated and for the first time ever I was having trouble keeping some of the characters straight. At first I kept going back to try to find a previous reference to a character, but after a while it got to be too much trouble so I just kept on going, but it took away from the usual enjoyment I feel when I read his books. I an hoping that his next book is easier to follow than Gone was.

When a pair of actors fakes their own abduction in an attempt to gain some attention, Dr. Alex Delaware is asked to perform a psychological analysis of the woman. But once the D.A.'s office agrees to plea out the case, it seems that Alex is finished. Until, that is, the woman's murdered body turns up. When his friend, Lieutenant Milo Sturgis is assigned the case and invites Alex along (Alex ia an authorized police assistant), Alex is happy to put his unhappy home life on hold and go out in search of clues.

The two actors both attended an acting school managed by a never-was actress. It seems that the woman could have encouraged the stunt--but does that have anything to do with the deaths. When they see the attractive people who attend the acting school (everyone in L.A. seems desperate to be discovered, to survive the brutal process that weeds out the wanna-bes and untalented), Milo and Alex recognize a perfect hunting ground for anyone who wants to stalk beautiful women like Michaela, Alex's former client. Acting on a hunch, Milo searches for other beautiful actresses who disappeared and detects a pattern.

The list of suspects starts to grow. Could it be the head of the school? Perhaps it was Michaela's partner in the stunt, a male actor who has disappeared. Perhaps it is a couple who also disappeared a couple of years earlier--when their dreams of success in Hollywood met reality. The known pervert who cleans at the acting school is certainly a candidate. Then there's the functioning autistic brother of the school teacher. Could he have decided to act out on his child-like fantasies.

Alex's psychological training is put to the test as he tries to make sense of the killings. The beautiful women form a kind of logic, but if the older couple aren't the killers, how do they fit the pattern? Meanwhile, Alex is stalked by an angry fellow psychologist and the two beautiful women whom Alex has recently had affairs with circle around, trying to decide if either (or both) of them want to come back into his life.

Author Jonathan Kellerman invariably writes a compelling and psychologically deep mystery and GONE is no exception. Although the victims here are Hollywood hopefuls rather than the young children who populated many of his earlier books, Kellerman involves the reader in their lives and in the fatal dream that Hollywood becomes for so many of them.

Experienced mystery readers will have no problem guessing the killer's identity, but getting there is definitely where the enjoyment is. Kellerman's strong writing and fascinating, if almost universally tragic, characters propelled me through the story. I did think that some of the personal side of the story (Delaware's relationship with the beautiful Allison and the beautiful Robin) detracted, rather than added to the story. Still, GONE is a hard book to put down. I'm happy to recommend it.