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Our Review
Death Is at Hand
In the 15 years that have passed since When the Bough Breaks was published, Jonathan Kellerman has produced a substantial body of fiction that combines viscerally exciting melodrama with subtlety and psychological complexity. These characteristic virtues are on full display in Dr. Death, Kellerman's 16th novel, and the 14th entry in the bestselling series featuring child psychologist -- and amateur detective -- Alex Delaware.
As the novel opens, Alex has signed on, once again, as an independent consultant to the Los Angeles Police Department. Partnered, as usual, with gay homicide detective Milo Sturgis, Alex finds himself investigating the death of a notorious, Kevorkian-like figure named Eldon Mate, popularly known as "Dr. Death." A controversial advocate of the "right to die," and a direct
participant in at least 50 assisted suicides, Mate enters the headlines one last time when his grotesquely mutilated body is found strapped to the "humanitron," a machine designed to facilitate the suicides of terminally ill clients.
Alex's involvement nearly results in an unintended conflict of interest. Some months earlier, Alex had treated a teenaged girl named Stacy Doss, whose mother, Joanne, ended a protracted illness by taking her own life, presumably with Mate's assistance. Richard Doss, Stacey's father and Joanne's husband, bitterly resented the role Mate played in his wife's suicide. A wealthy, powerful man with a hair-trigger temper, Richard is one of a number of people with a viable motive for murder.
As the investigation proceeds, Alex and Milo steadily unearth a string of prospective culprits. Included among them are Mate's lawyer, who disappeared immediately after his client's death; Mate's son, a homeless, possibly psychotic artist whose father abandoned him many years before; and various members of the wealthy, terminally dysfunctional Doss family. Complicating
all this is the possible involvement of an unrelated suspect: a traveling serial killer who goes by many names and whose modus operandi eerily mirrors the methods employed by Eldon Mate's killer.
Kellerman assembles his complex, multilayered plot with typical ingenuity, leading Alex through a lethal labyrinth of possibilities toward a violent, ironic conclusion. But Dr. Death is more than just a compelling novel of suspense. Like so much of Kellerman's work, it is also an acute, painfully precise portrait of a family torn apart by internal pressures and by the combined effects of guilt, grief, rage, hatred, and twisted, misplaced love. Dr. Death offers intelligent, compassionate, high-adrenaline entertainment and reaffirms Kellerman's position as one the leading modern practitioners of psychological suspense.
--Bill Sheehan
Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has just been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
A series of well-publicized gentle deaths are the work of self-appointed angel of mercy Dr. Eldon Mate, who attends to the terminally ill in cheap hotel rooms or in the back of his van. Now Mate himself is dead, carved up and found by two joggers and their dog on a high road above Los Angeles. Like Kellerman's previous bestsellers, this title features psychologist Alex Delaware, whose self-righteous pomposity blends neatly, as it has before, into a narrative liberally dosed with psycho-angles and agreeably warped murder motives. This time out, Delaware works with cop Milo Sturgis and counsels Stacy and Eric Doss, two teenage children getting over their mother Joanne's death, which Dr. Mate seemingly helped to hasten. In his dual role, Delaware encounters a rogue FBI agent tracking a killer obsessed with Mate; Mate's disturbed son; and Richard Doss, the kids' father, who by slipping cash to a shady character in a dark bar is marked as a prime murder suspect. Joanne's illness too proves mysterious. But Kellerman isn't in top form here. Most annoyingly, the FBI guy does the bulk of the sleuthing legwork, while Delaware spends much of the book either making love or pontificating on motivations for characters all very similarly flawed. The ending is agreeably tricky, but by then great gobs of Delaware have either delighted Kellerman's faithful or else turned readers' stomachs in a way that serial deaths, gentle or otherwise, may have somehow failed to do. Kellerman's rep and the book's strong, geometric cover will send this one on to the lists. (Dec. 5) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Kellerman has come up with another very enjoyable mystery. The crime-solving team of LAPD detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware are back to attempt to solve the murder of Eldon Mate Dr. Death who had attended more than 50 assisted suicides. In death, Mate is found in the rear of a rented van, hooked up to his own suicide machine. Read by John Rubinstein, this engaging story works very well on several levels, as it discusses psychology, dysfunctional families, and Southern California lifestyles, in addition to the ethics of euthanasia. The book has a remarkably contemporary feel about as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines, yet it may also inspire repeat listening. Highly recommended; essential for detective and mystery collections. Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
From the Publisher
Praise for Monster
"Kellerman is in peak form. . . . A surprising and complex story of festering evil--a tale that snakes its way to a stunningly dramatic conclusion."
--People (Page-Turner of the Week)
Praise for Billy Straight
"Billy Straight is everything a thriller ought to be. The writing is excellent. The plotting is superior. The characters ring true. . . . A taut, compelling story."
--USA Today
Praise for Jonathan Kellerman
"Jonathan Kellerman doesn't just write psychological thrillers--he owns the genre."
--Detroit Free Press
"Often, mystery writers can either plot like devils or create believable characters. Kellerman stands out because he can do both. Masterfully."
--USA Today
"Kellerman excels at plotting, dialogue, procedural detail and insight into abnormal states of mind."
--Los Angeles Times
"Kellerman is the acknowledged king of the psychological thriller."
--The Dallas Morning News
