Customer Reviews

Therapy (Alex Delaware, No. 18)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Psychologist and Police Consultant, Alex Delaware is back to help Homicide Detective, Milo Sturgis investigate the killing of two young adults murdered in a Lover's Lane type setting. The fact that a metal spike, along with a gunshot wound, impaled the woman indicates more than a routine killing. The woman remains unidentified, but the young man turns out to have had a personality change due to a recent car accident. He was seeing noted celebrity psychologist, Dr. Mary Lou Koppel, for his problems. Through the investigation, another similarly murdered patient of Dr. Koppel's comes to light. Before long, Dr. Koppel herself is found murdered. The killings seem to be linked; and Alex and Milo work to find what how.

I usually love the Alex Delaware series and this one started out well enough, but about half way through the book, it turned deadly dull. The characters were not likable and I could just not care what happened to any of them. It was bad enough that the plot was uninteresting, but it turned ridiculous as well. Alex Delaware's personal story was hardly explored at all. First time Alex Delaware readers will be at a loss to know anything about his backstory even though his girlfriend and ex-girlfriend both make an appearance in the story.

First half of the book was perhaps 4 stars and the second half 2 stars for an average of 3 even though it pains me to rate one of my favorite authors so low.

THERAPY by Jonathan Kellerman

August 24, 2004

THERAPY is Jonathan Kellerman's latest Alex Delaware novel. In this novel, Alex and Milo Sturgis are on a mission to figure out the connection between a murder that has just occurred in Beverly Hills, and one that happened previously and left unsolved. The victims of the first murder are a man and a woman, found shot and stabbed in a car parked outside a Beverly Hills home. It almost appears to be a sexually motivated murder, judging by the positions the couple was left in at the murder scene. The male victim was seeing a therapist, Mary Lou Koppel, and that is where the investigation begins. The previously murdered woman was also found in a sexual position, and is later found to have been going to therapy as well.

The connection between the two is rather flimsy until Dr Koppel herself gets murdered. There is definitely a link between all three, and it is up to Alex and Milo to find out the connection.

I've only read a handful of Alex Delaware novels, and I have enjoyed them all, but this one was the least favorite so far. I found myself losing interest during parts of the novel, which were filled with a lot of political rhetoric. I didn't think there was a need to go into that much detail in a novel such as this. A few paragraphs would have sufficed. I also was not happy with the ending, feeling that there were some unanswered questions that could have been resolved. All in all, however, I do recommend THERAPY but for new fans of Jonathan Kellerman, I suggest starting with one of his older novels.

Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis investigate the murder of a young couple, which soon engulfs them in an increasingly complex mystery.

Jonathan Kellerman is great at creating complicated, well-developed plots and shows no signs here of losing his touch. I also quite liked the supporting characters, especially the Quick family.

My only real problem with Kellerman is his over-reliance on description. I don't really need to know what the bookshelves of some minor character looks like. His descriptions can sometimes run as long as an entire page, and I just wind up skimming.

Otherwise, another highly satisfying book from one of crime's best writers.

If you like Jonathan Kellerman, you'll like this book--but some of the author's most annoying traits are rife in this particular outing, and they frankly drove me crazy.

First, the plot: Therapist Alex Delaware teams up with his police pal Milo Sturgis to help solve what seems at first to be a run-of-the-mill double murder: a young couple have been murdered while parked on a lovers' lane. But these murders are particularly and horribly brutal. The woman has not only been shot, but skewered with an iron bar. It's a big case of overkill, and a little digging unearths a particularly nasty underbelly to the murder and its aftermath.

As Milo and Alex dig into the multiple webs that surround this murder and its motive, the plot gets increasingly difficult, so that the reader has to stop more than once to unravel the latest string and put it in context. I know the author meant that to reflect the puzzle that the two are trying to solve, but it stopped me cold more than once.

And the other thing that stopped me cold many, many times was the endlessly intricate narration of streets and routes that Kellerman affects in each of his books. I grew up in LA. The streets are all real, and I know most of them. So when he says, "I drove down Robertson to Pico," I know exactly what he is talking about, and I have to stop reading to visualize it. This time out, he actually gets into the minute details of a neighborhood in which I grew up, and we're talking streets, hills, even foliage. WHY does he do this? Does anybody in the entire world need to know the in-depth "Mapquest" routing of every ride that Delaware takes? It's gone from simple author quirk to something so annoying that it takes away from each and every book he writes, and this one truly is the worst.

I can't say that "Therapy" isn't a fun book, especially as summertime reading. I finished it in a day. But be warned: Unless you enjoy map-reading for fun and pleasure, prepare to be annoyed throughout the otherwise fast-paced mystery.

I love Jonathan Kellerman's stories about Alex Delaware and his friend Milo Sturgis, but this one, like Mr. Kellerman's last book "Conspiracy Club," was not up to par.

The plot got bogged down in the intricacies of government funding and Medi-Cal billing. The average citizen dislikes dealing with insurance in real life, so why would they want to read about it in their spare time? Too many characters contributed to this problem. I found it hard to care about Gavin Quick, and it was even harder to figure out whether he was a bad guy or a good guy. Ditto for his father, aunt, and ex-girlfriend. And why the long ramble about the girl who was found in the car with him? Background is one thing, Mr. Kellerman, but superfluous writing is quite another.

Go back to psychology and murder, and leave the California insurance business alone, Mr. Kellerman. Your books are much more enjoyable that way.

Alex Delaware should sell stock in Google.

It seems like in the last few book, most of his investigative break through have come from running some poor schmuck's name through the Internet search engine to find out about the most intimate details of a person life. In one funny turn of events he actually says he needs to do some old fashion leg work, so what does he do. He turns to an old friend who is an expert at discovering government funding. How does she do it? By searching computer databases.

Therapy is the latest yarn by Jonathan Kellerman. Once again he returns to his safe ground. A first person dominated tale from the perspective of Dr. Alex Delaware, a California Psychologist. This time, Dr. Delaware is helping his friend, Lieutenant Milo Sturgis, investigate the brutal slaying of two young lovers found parked in a convertible. One of these young lovers was the recent victim of a traumatic brain injury and was seeing a celebrity shrink.

As the investigation moves on, it is discovered that this isn't the first patient of this celebrity shrink to be murdered using this M.O. Eventually, the psychologist herself is murdered. What follows is a complex tale involving strippers, the Rwandan Tutsi genocide, Medicare fraud, prison reform, secret government officials and real estate deals. The Plot becomes so complex that it guarantees a bit of an anti-climatic ending.

For the most part, the book is fast paced and fun to read. Unfortunately, Kellerman's choice to write solely in the first person again prevents a lot of character development. His previous Delaware novel included third person accounts from Sturgis and his female LA Detective Petra, and these changes of pace in the story telling really rounded out the story. Here we are back to the ho-hum goody two shoes word of Alex Delaware.

Kellerman is a gifted story teller, but boxes himself in too much in this tale. In a plot as intricate as this, with a lot of dirty players in dirty places, confining us to Dr. Delaware's nice house doing computer searches takes some away from the story.

With Therapy, Kellerman returns to Alex Delaware and Milo as people trying to solve mysteries by understanding the motivations of criminals and those around them. This is at the heart of what makes the series work.

Seeing through people's lies and self-deceptions to find out what's really going on is the challenge of this novel - especially when many of the lies are shielded by the confidentiality invoked by therapists even when it's themselves, not the patient, they're protecting. Kellerman is a master at creating real and interesting characters. Nobody does it better, and I thought this was one of his best.

Those who want the soap opera of Robin to continue ... well, you get a tiny bit of it. But frankly, when she ditched him I thought he was well shut of her, and now that she won't leave him alone, I'm getting fed up...

Another Alex Delaware novel comes to life under Kellerman's skilled hand, churning out a riveting plot and adventure based on a young couple's murder in the Los Angeles hills. The savage murder and missing identity of the young woman involved lands the case in Alex Delaware's lap, involving him in a series of clues which brings him in conflict with a popular celebrity psychologist's Therapy cases.

A young couple is found dead in a car in Beverly Hills. Milo Sturgis and Alex Delaware begin an investigation. The young woman is proving to be difficult to identify. They soon discover the young man was being seen by psychologist Mary Lou Koppel. In a strange twist, it is revealed that another patient of Koppel's was murdered a little over a year ago. Another murder soon follows. The first half of this book was great with Milo and Alex tracking down clues. Then the pace slows a bit and the plot becomes a little scattered. At first, I thought the international angle was over the top, but by the end it made more sense. I always enjoy the interaction between Milo and Alex and it was in good supply in this outing. So, although the story bogged down in places and at times seemed over-complicated, it was an interesting read and the good ending left me satisfied.

said it best when accusing Jonathan Kellerman of "going through the motions". Good ingredients in this story -- a lot of Milo and Alex acting as sidekicks; a solid resolution to the "Robin" angle, with Robin now out of his life, and an interesting new
love in it.

The plot begins crisply, and Kellerman weaves a typical television psychologist into the mix (more of a PR specialist than a therapist). But the mystery bogs down when an international flavor is added and the final resolution is way, way out there...beyond what the reader needed or wanted. I don't know if Kellerman doesn't outline his plots and resolutions in his drabber books beforehand, and just continues to build castles in the air when trying to finish, or if he just gets bored.

Anyway, a disappointment after his resurrection of Alex Delaware mysteries over the course of the last three books in series. Trite, and not worth your time.