Customer Reviews

Self-Defense (Alex Delaware)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The best thing about Kellerman's novels is the experience as a psychologist he brings to his writing. He creates characters who have complex motivations and surprising, often unguessable behaviors -- just like real people. This may seem an absurdly obvious compliment, but when you consider how often other writers rely on 2-dimensional, stock characters, Kellerman's gift becomes more impressive. The character of Lucy in this novel -- the girl haunted by nightmares -- is so fascinating that I continued to read, as much to learn about her mind and feelings as I did to learn about "what happened" in the mystery. Both were eminently satisfying and thought-provoking. Also, in this book, Milo Sturgis gets to add another facet to his well-drawn, sympathetic character: the unwitting crush-object of a girl who doesn't know his orientation. Kellerman keeps finding new ways to explore his characters' rich lives. The intriguing plot of this book, with its central device of recurring dreams and repressed memories, is a particular treat.

Lucy Lowell is literally living a nightmare. Her mother died when she was a child, her brother became a drug addict and her father, a disgusting, vile recluse was an aging 1960s flower child. He is singularly foul in appearance, hygiene (he is incontinent and wheelchair bound) and speech. He lives a reclusive life with a private nurse, bitter about having to provide skilled nursing care.

A serial killer invades Lucy's life. A disgusting creature, not too different in temperament from her father, the killer mutilates people and befouls their bodies. Lucy had to sit on the jury of this case.

She has recurring nightmares about these issues and Dr. Delaware is called in to investigate. He unearths a series of murder, extortion and mistaken identity cases. Each mystery is a segue to the next and in this book, the conclusion is plausible and satisfactory. Another positive note is that Robin, Delaware's live in girlfriend has more or less receded to the background. I never cared for Robin and never felt she contributed to any of the Alex Delaware stories in any meaningful way.

Dr. Alex Delaware is completely incorrigible! I love this character, but no wonder his pal Milo is going gray - keeping Alex out of trouble is a full time job! There is a scene in this one where Milo tells Alex straight out not to go snooping - he tells him, "I know you ..." Yeah, Milo knows him all right, and so do we, don't we? (And if you don't - read the books! They're great!)

Okay, Alex is a clinical psychologist who is semi-retired, does mostly forensic work now for the court and the police. His best friend Milo Sturgis is a homicide detective with the LAPD. Once Alex gets involved in a mystery, he is incapable of letting it go. In all fairness, it is Milo who gets him involved in this one.

Alex and his girlfriend Robin are rebuilding their house - she's a carpenter, so she's very hands-on with the rebuilding. In the meantime, they're living on the beach in Malibu. Sweet.

Milo is quite taken by one of the jurors involved in a particularly gruesome and high profile case. Ever since the trial, Lucy Lowell has been having nightmares and Milo asks his friend Alex to try to help her. She's quite a character and Alex is taken by her too. (Things get a little complicated when she reveals her crush on Milo - FINALLY! A woman falls for Milo! (I'm not the only one!) The fact he's gay does put a crimp in things, but no matter). While her recurring dream becomes more intense, other strange happenings have her - and everyone else - questioning her sanity. But there is obviously more going on than anyone originally thought and Alex is afraid maybe this dream is not a nightmare at all, but a long suppressed childhood memory. The memory of a murder.

Milo is tied up with another complicated case, so Alex goes off digging on his own - again. I had to laugh - several times, Alex comments about doing something "on impulse" and I'm sitting there waiting for someone to try to kill him. The lies come so easy for him in this one - he's been getting a lot of practice. He pretends to be a journalist, a freelance novelist, a publisher and he even manages to keep his lies straight - he's amazing! But the inevitable happens and he and Lucy find themselves staring down the wrong end of a gun.

The mystery is 20 years old, so it's a very cold trail and a very complicated case - you won't figure it out - the ending is quite a surprise.

Psychologist Alex Delaware takes on a new patient when a policeman friend refers him to a young woman who served on the jury of a serial murderer's trial. Lucy Lowell has been having a recurring dream wherein she is four years old, in the woods, watching three men carry a young woman who appears to be sleeping. When Lucy also starts sleepwalking, she goes to visit Dr. Delaware, who begins investigating the events in the dream.

Lucy's father is M. Bayard Lowell, a celebrated author turned recluse when his well of talent dried up. Once, his books were required reading in high schools, but his last published piece was a critically savaged flop. He found a patron and started an artists and writers' retreat called Sanctum, where the spirit of free love reigned supreme in the 1970s. Now, it is rundown and all but abandoned, and the once Great Man is a shriveled, incontinent cripple. Lucy denies ever having been to Sanctum, but her older half brother Ken remembers a summer when all four of Lowell's children from both of his marriages were there.

Dr. Delaware starts investigating missing young women from the same summer Lucy was at Sanctum and uncovers one missing Karen Best, who had been working as a waitress at a restaurant only a few miles from Sanctum. Delaware realizes he's raising old ghosts from his investigation and a lot more than one body has piled up over the years. People disappear when they get involved in the disappearance of Karen Best. Dr. Delaware uncovers an intricate web of betrayal and deceit that could very well take him down with it.

Though it moved at a methodical, plodding pace, the story was intriguing enough to hold my interest. I wanted to know what happened to Karen Best. In the end, her disappearance wound up having unexpected circumstances that got a bit muddled in the convoluted ending. Another detraction was the smug arrogance of Dr. Delaware, who apparently believes he alone knows how Lucy should deal with the hand life dealt her, and her only way of going on is under his care. He also seems rather offhand with the woman in his own life and their dog, which did not make me warm to him any further. It is, however, possible to ignore these details, and some prefer a slow-paced mystery to savor. I could be persuaded to read another Alex Delaware novel, but I won't strain myself to do so.

What a treat! I love Kellerman books, and he's got a winner here! Lucy Lowell comes to psychologist Alex Kellerman after she is a juror in a serial killer case. The horror brought out by that case caused Lucy to have nightmares about a little girl watching what could be a rape, murder, or burial. She doesn't remember that the little 4-year-old girl is herself until she goes under hypnosis.

Alex, in his clever way, grabs cop friend Milo Sturgis and goes behind the scenes and tracks down the details of this case -- which is very real. People start dying all around them, and Alex and Milo realize they are on to something -- and it's not a dream.

This is a great Kellerman book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a spooky thriller. Going back into the past can be scary, and Kellerman makes it even more so in this case!

If u like a series novelist, Mr Kellerman is just what the good doctor ordered. Kellerman paints vivid portraits of suffering and healing like nobody else in the fiction biz!!! He is a clever and witty narrator that is good at detailing "real life" accounts.

This guy could be called "The Mailman" because he delivers. I know, I know it's a cliche but Kellerman is that damn good (sorry HHH)!!! He is very good at describing his characters and keeping the story flowing at a nice pace. Like his wife, he is just an excellent writer, I know I am laying it on kind of thick, but READ him and u will find out for yourself!!!

As usual his stories carry an underlying socio-logical message. He writes with the precision of a surgeon and is just great at documenting the human condition that is life. His book's are always enjoyable and I am surprised they aren't turned into movies. That is the way his novels read.

Smooth like JD on ice!!!

Just when I was to set the book down, another twist comes up. Then I find myself turning 20 or so pages on and on. Kellerman makes you flip pages through the night and read so much you'll wake up with big eyebugs. ehehehe. Wonderful.

I loved this book. Previously, "Bad Love" And "Private Eyes" had been favourites, but now this one in his great series has usurped both absolutely. These few books after "Private Eyes" seem to have achieved a greater maturity than some of his earlier ones, and it benefits them very well, lifting from five star great reads to ive start great books. He is [occasionally] able to create characters who seem so real and normal but have such great psychological depth that they are absolutely fantastic. In any other novel they might be dull, but because of Kellerman's probing and analytical style that become 3D and interesting.

The plot here is basically summarised thus:

Alex Delware is treating Lucy Lowell, having been referred to him by his friend Ilio Sturgis, a police Detective. Lucy was a juror in the trial of a vicious serial killer, and helped to put him away. Now, the horrid details of his killings are disturbing her, coming back to haunt her.

But, then, something far more sinister emerges during her therapy...She has been having a disturbing recurring dream - which Alex thinks is likely to have been stimulated by memories awoken by events of the trial - about a young girl, alone in the woods, a secret witness to three men disposing of the body of a young woman...

It's a cracking plot, it really is. Kellerman builds it up so that it's all very satisying. It weaves in and out of itself like a complex tapestry. The pace is absolutely perfect, and the reader is compelled to keep returning eagerly to the book after having put it down.

Delware is a good central character, and is keep nicely fresh because of the continuous movement of his personal relationship with girlriend Robin (soon, though, more than this will be required to stop him from going stale in a few books time, but, for now, he's quite quite safe).

I'd reccomend this to every lover of thrillers and crime/mystery novels. It's the best of the series so far, which means that it is absolutely excellent.

Returning in top form, Kellerman's semi-retired psychotherapist, Dr. Alex Delaware, who was introduced in When the Bough Breaks (1985), traces a young woman's dreams back to crimes committed 20 years earlier. A few months after serving on an L.A. jury that finds a landscape laborer guilty of a series of grotesque mutilations and killings, Lucy Lowell is beset by a recurring nightmare in which she, as a youngster, watches three men bury a young woman in the woods. Referred to Alex by Milo Sturgis, the LAPD detective in charge of the serial killer case, Lucy proves a game and eager patient, leading the psychologist into a past that centers around her father, a monumentally egotistical literary lion who had sponsored the writing career of a notorious ex-con at a California art colony in the '70s. Still warmhearted and earnest, Alex, in his ninth appearance, has lightened up some as he has aged, showing a readier humor and more chutzpah (e.g., posing as a writer-named Sandy Del Ware-to infiltrate closed Hollywood circles) as he facilitates Lucy's exploration of the past. With its nicely orchestrated twists, Kellerman's plot will keep readers guessing right up to the well-prepared resolution

This is the fourth Alex Delaware novel I have read and it is as good as the others. Kellerman's books are extremely intelligent and well written. The novels are analytical rather than action oriented, with good, sometimes brilliant characters