Survival of the Fittest (Alex Delaware) [Mass Market Paperback]

Jonathan Kellerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002 | Series: Alex Delaware Novels

“FEVERISH IN PACE AND RICH IN CHARACTERS . . . THIS IS A CHILLING AND IRRESISTIBLE THRILLER.”
–People

The daughter of a diplomat disappears on a school field trip–lured into the Santa Monica mountains and killed in cold blood. Her father denies the possibility of a political motive. There are no signs of struggle, no evidence of sexual assault, leaving psychologist Alex Delaware and his friend LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis to pose the disturbing question: Why?

Working together with Daniel Sharavi, a brilliant Israeli police inspector, Delaware and Sturgis soon find themselves ensnared in one of the darkest, most menacing cases of their careers. And when death strikes again, it is Alex who must go undercover, alone, to expose an unthinkable conspiracy of self-righteous brutality and total contempt for human life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Legendary L.A. psychologist-turned-novelist Kellerman raids real life when inventing the adventures of his psychologist sleuth, Dr. Alex Delaware, and some of the scariest parts of Survival of the Fittest are historical. Eugenicists lurk behind a murder spree Alex must solve, and he notes that the eugenics movement involved one elite U.S. college professor who advocated castration of ethnically lesser men, a forced sterilization ordered by Supreme Court Justice Holmes that Hitler used as a precedent to sterilize millions, and the pre-Holocaust coinage of the phrase "final solution."

Besides a truly horrifying theme, Survival of the Fittest boasts sharp but not arch dialogue; savvy psychological insights into stressed-out cops, suicides' loved ones, and malevolent therapists; and a sense of place so vivid that the Los Angeles Times has rated Kellerman the most evocative L.A. author since Raymond Chandler.

The plot's as twisty as a canyon road, and it's great fun to ride along with Dr. Alex and his sidekick, the burly, gay LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, as they dodge large red herrings and strive to find out why mildly handicapped kids are suffering "gentle strangulation" by killers who sign their handiwork with the mysterious letters DVLL, and what the devil this has to do with the high-IQ group Meta. Bonus for Kellerman fans: his Israeli serial killer catcher, Daniel Sharavi, star of his 1988 bestseller The Butcher's Theater, joins the sleuth team. But in the gory finale, Dr. Alex faces absolute evil all alone. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Readers will find this latest installment in the Alex Delaware series (e.g., The Clinic, LJ 10/15/96) entertaining despite the author's tendency to overdescribe settings at the expense of character development. The psychologist again helps his friend, detective Milo Sturgis, solve a cold case: a deaf and mildly retarded Israeli girl, the daughter of a diplomat, is strangled in a park, and the letters "D-V-L-L" are found on a scrap of paper in her pocket. Authorities have failed to come up with a suspect or any leads, so the victim's father brings in a detective of his own, the great Daniel Sharavi, from Kellerman's The Butcher's Theater (Bantam, 1988). Over 200 pages later, Delaware finally goes undercover to infiltrate a sinister MENSA-like organization, and the ends of this plot, filled with psychopathic cops and pseudo-scientific racists, are (too neatly) tied up. Despite the book's flaws, Kellerman fans and readers seeking an intelligent thriller should enjoy this. Recommended for all public libraries.?Laurel A. Wilson, Alexandrian P.L, Mount Vernon, Ind.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; later printing edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345458842
• ISBN-13: 978-0345458841
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #340,101 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan Kellerman is one of the world's most popular authors. He has brought his expertise as a clinical psychologist to more than thirty bestselling crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, The Butcher's Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted,and True Detectives. With his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, he co-authored the bestsellers Double Homicide and Capital Crimes. He is the author of numerous essays, short stories, scientific articles, two children's books, and three volumes of psychology, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children, as well as the lavishly illustrated With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and has been nominated for a Shamus Award.

Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California and New Mexico. Their four children include the novelist Jesse Kellerman.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kellerman ventures into the darkest recesses of horror!, December 22, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Survival Of The Fittest: (Alex Delaware Novels) (Hardcover)

You start this book with no concept that it's going to go to one of the most reprehensible areas of humanity--eugenics. But Kellerman handles this with great finesse and holds us spellbound right up to the end. Dr. Alex Delaware gets better and better with each book. And now we have a new hero, Daniel Sharavi, who makes a repeat appearance here and certainly warrants future books of his own. Kellerman continues to provide meaty, exciting thrillers with a very human quality that doesn't let you put the book down until you've lived each and every line right along with his heroes and heroines. This is a great one and well worth the time spent. It also leaves us pondering the ethics and morality involved and wondering if it's fiction or a very real dilemma of the very real world we live in.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I listened to the abridged audiotape of this book, November 18, 2004

By 

M. C. Crammer (Decatur, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Survival of the Fittest (Audio Cassette)

I had heard it wasn't as good as previous books by this author, but I thought it was of the same quality. Kellerman has a formula and a style, and if you like it, I think you'll like this book. The plot involves first a very public suicide by a policeman and then the discovery of the body of a dead child -- who is both deaf and retarded, not to mention the daughter of a diplomat. Alex Delaware, child psychologist and consultant to the LAPD, gets involved through his policeman buddy. In no time at all, you start wondering who can be trusted -- and Alex begins to uncover something larger and even uglier than the death of a child.

It's hard for me to imagine what they cut out of the book for the abridgement, because I didn't feel like I was getting the reader's digest version. I enjoyed listening to this tape.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Among the so-so ones, April 26, 2000

By 

"samarand" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Survival of the Fittest: An Alex Delaware Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

I have to admit I have a soft spot for the Alex Delaware series, in fact, it is the only detective-book series I have followed in its entirety. This isn't really because it is great in its entirety: in fact the series includes great books (When the Bough Breaks, Over the Edge, Silent Partner, Blood Test), so-so books (The Clinic, The Web, Bad Love) and definitely horrible books (Time Bomb, Self Defense, Private Eyes). I know Kellerman isn't such a great writer (his tendency to string sentences without verbs is most irritating, among other things), but I confess I rather like Alex, Milo, Robin, and dog Spike. So I doggedly keep up with the series. This one enters definitely in the so-so category. The plot starts out interestingly but it is as if Kellerman didn't know very well how to get its act together. A whole-hog investigation of a certain organization is started, without any real link between the organization and the murders. After a lot of work (including undercover work), not a wisp of real, admissible-in-court evidence is found, so the author takes the easy way out to finish the story. It is readable but you have to allow your suspension of disbelief and critical spirit to take a hike. I probably rate it higher than it deserves because, as I said, I like this series, and because of the chapter on eugenics, which was very educational.