Unnatural History (Alex Delaware Series #38)

by Jonathan Kellerman

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The most enduring detectives in American crime fiction are back in this electrifying thriller of art and brutality from the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.

Los Angeles is a city of stark contrast, the palaces of the affluent coexisting uneasily with the hellholes of the mad and the needy. That shadow world and the violence it breeds draw brilliant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis into an unsettling case of altruism gone wrong.

On a superficially lovely morning, a woman shows up for work with her usual enthusiasm. She’s the newly hired personal assistant to a handsome, wealthy photographer and is ready to greet her boss with coffee and good cheer. Instead, she finds him slumped in bed, shot to death.

The victim had recently received rave media attention for his latest project: images of homeless people in their personal “dream” situations, elaborately costumed and enacting unfulfilled fantasies. There are some, however, who view the whole thing as nothing more than crass exploitation, citing token payments and the victim’s avoidance of any long-term relationships with his subjects.

Has disgruntlement blossomed into homicidal rage? Or do the roots of violence reach down to the victim’s family—a clan, sired by an elusive billionaire, that is bizarre in its own right?

Then new murders arise, and Alex and Milo begin peeling back layer after layer of intrigue and complexity, culminating in one of the deadliest threats they’ve ever faced.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525618614
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/07/2023
Series:	Alex Delaware Series
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Kellerman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than forty crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, The Butcher’s Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted, True Detectives, and The Murderer’s Daughter. With his wife, bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman, he co-authored Double Homicide and Capital Crimes. With his son, bestselling novelist Jesse Kellerman, he co-authored The Burning, Half Moon Bay, A Measure of Darkness, Crime Scene, The Golem of Hollywood, and The Golem of Paris. He is the author of two children’s books and numerous nonfiction works, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children and With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California.

Hometown:

Beverly Hills, California

Date of Birth:

August 9, 1949

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A. in psychology, University of California-Los Angeles; Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1974

Website:

http://www.jonathankellerman.com/

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

When I go to crime scenes, I’m ready to focus on terrible things.

I end up at crime scenes because my best friend, a homicide lieutenant, thinks I have something to offer on the cases he calls “different.”

He rarely gives me details, wanting me to form my own impressions. As I pulled up to the yellow tape on a Monday morning just after ten, I knew nothing.

No evidence markers outside. Whatever had happened was limited to the interior of a navy-blue, two-story stucco building.

I gave my name to a uniform guarding the tape and was allowed to park in a red zone.

The blue building sat on the north side of Venice Boulevard, perched on a grubby corner, the entrance on a side street. At the back was a parking area, also taped, with the rear end of a black Prius just visible. Beyond the alley was a residential block; seventy-year-old apartments and a few straggling bungalows.

A little pocket of L.A. that had managed to elude Culver City when borders were drawn.

The automotive mix out front was the usual. Black-and-whites plus vehicles dispatched from the crypt on North Mission Road. Two vans for transporting techs and their gear, meaning lots of scraping and sampling; one for transporting bodies; a Chevy Volt sedan used by coroners’ assistants as they traveled around the county ministering to dead people.

No signage on the blue building. Rust-crusted security bars grilled two narrow windows on each floor. So narrow they evoked castle bow-slits.

I slipped under the tape and headed for the front door, a gray metal slab left slightly ajar. No one had told me to glove up but I covered my hand with a corner of my blazer and prepared to nudge. Before I made contact, the door swung open and Milo Sturgis came out.

He wore a pessimistic black suit, a beige shirt stretched tight over his gut, and a skinny brown tie whose origins could be traced to a chemistry lab. Paper booties covered his desert boots. He had gloved up and latex glistened as it strained over hands the size of strip steaks. His black hair alternated between gelled obedience and random flight. His face was chalky in the sunlight, UV rays advertising pits and lumps that harked back to teenage acne.

Nothing to interpret; his default pallor. Startling green eyes remained calm but his mouth was set in a sour frown.

Annoyed.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “Ready to put on your therapist hat?”

“For who?

“C’mon, I’ll show you.”



The door opened to a blank white wall. To the right was an alarm keypad. Less wall than knock-up partition; pebbled, whitewashed fiberboard, no ability to mute sound.

Lots of sound from behind the wall. Moans and gasps and sobs then a moment of breath-catching quiet during which a woman said, “Try to relax,” with no great sincerity.

More sobbing.

I said, “Someone’s having a bad day.”

Milo said, “Not compared with the decedent. Hopefully you can calm things down so I can concentrate on the decedent.”


CHAPTER 2

By the time I reached the crying woman, I knew the decedent’s name and hers after Milo showed me her California driver’s license.

Melissa Lee-Ann Gornick.

“But,” said Milo, “she goes by Melissande.”

The license pegged her as twenty years old, five-four, ninety-eight pounds, BRN eyes and hair. Why DMV bothers to record hair color has always mystified me and Melissande Gornick proved my point with a hot-pink, teased-up do. Since being photographed three years ago, she’d also added steel piercings to her left eyebrow, her left cheek, her right nostril, and the soft spot between lower lip and chin.

For all that, both ears remained untouched by metal. Maybe that was now a thing. My patients are generally well below the piercing age so I sometimes miss out on current events.

Melissande Gornick rocked back and forth in a chair and gripped the sides of her face with black-nailed hands. Her spare frame barely impacted the seating, an oversized love seat of brick-colored tweed. One of half a dozen pieces of furniture strewn randomly in cold, white space. Two techs worked in corners, scraping, bottling, bagging, labeling.

As we approached, she let out three gulping sobs then switched to high-pitched keening whistles. Then back to crying.

Like a teapot undecided if brewing was complete.

Milo’s look said, See what I mean.

The female officer stationed behind Gornick said, “Try to relax,” with even less enthusiasm than a moment ago.

When you’re all strung up, there’s nothing less helpful than being told to calm down. But cops aren’t therapists and confronting anxiety kicks in their own fears of madness and impulse. So they keep saying it and getting nowhere and the beat goes on.

Melissande Gornick wailed louder. The uniform rolled her eyes.

Milo said, “We’re okay, Officer Bourget.”

Bourget’s look said he was Santa and she’d been a good girl.

“Yessir.” She trotted away.

Melissande Gornick seemed unaware of her surroundings. Rosy, welt-like marks striped her cheeks where her nails had taken hold. I wondered if she was prone to self-injury. A long-sleeved black jersey and gray skinny jeans blocked diagnosis.

Milo bent close to her. “So sorry you had to go through this.”

Using the ideal tone, soft and nonthreatening, but nothing indicated she’d heard. He shook his head, stepped away, and waved me forward.

I’d been checking out the white space. The entire ground floor of the building was a single open area with an iron spiral staircase tucked in the rear right corner. Walls were blank, cement floors painted glossy black. The mismatched furniture—chairs, table, an old desk—ranged from gently used to stuff that looked as if it had been rescued from the curb.

The only clue to the building’s function was a section, rear and central, lit by overhead tracks and containing a single, straight-backed chair, three high wooden Victorian armoires, a trio of silver light baffles, and two cameras on tripods, one of which looked antique.

Robin has a camera like that, a Hasselblad she inherited from her father and has never used. Neither of us photographs much. Robin because she prefers to draw and paint, I because there are enough images in my head.

Black drapes hung from a ring of metal pipe running high near the ceiling of the posing area. A curtain capable of blocking the front was furled, leaving the space open to view.

I approached Melissande Gornick. Her soundtrack changed and she began hyperventilating.

In movies, heroes use paper bags to treat hyperventilation, but it’s an iffy technique at best and can sometimes be dangerous.

Gearing up my hypnosis voice—soft, rhythmic, and, most important, monotonous—I said, “You’re doing fine . . . ​if you feel like it, slow your breathing . . . ​not a lot, just a bit.”

She continued to gulp. Caught her breath. Arched her back.

Trying.

No success but I said, “Excellent . . . ​keep doing that . . . ​just breathe . . . ​you’re in charge . . . ​that’s it . . . ​great . . . ​perfect . . . ​breathe nice and easy . . . ​great . . . ​think you can slow down a tiny bit more?”

She tensed.

I said, “Or not. Up to you.”

She loosened.

“Excellent. Now see if you can breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.”

I timed her respiration with my watch. Good old analog Omega with a second hand.

Another couple dozen respirations before her rate had slowed to just above normal.

I said, “Fantastic, so whatever you need to do.”

She exhaled. Sat still. Stared straight ahead.

“Good job, Melissande.”

“I felt like I was . . . ​gonna . . .” Her chest rose and fell.

“Sure,” I said. “You’ve been through something tough.”

BRN eyes widened. “What . . . ​now?”

Someone else might’ve said, Try to stay relaxed.

I said, “Do whatever you need to.”

That confused her, which was the point. The power of constructive distraction.

She stared at me. Her hands dropped from her face, wrists and forearms vibrating. If she’d had a fleshier face, it would’ve jiggled. This face was narrow, delicately boned, the sweaty skin stretched drum-tight, and it remained still.

Milo fidgeted.

Melissande Gornick said, “I don’t . . . ​f**k, I don’t . . . ​know.”

I said, “Know . . .?”

“What to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything, Melissande.”

Unsatisfactory answer. She grimaced and tightened up.

I said, “Do whatever it takes.”

“I’ll never get through this!”

“It’s a terrible thing.”

“It’s—f**ked up.”

“Totally.”

Editorial Reviews

12/05/2022

Edgar winner Kellerman’s enjoyable 38th Alex Delaware mystery (after 2022’s City of the Dead) opens at a crime scene: the studio-cum-apartment of photographer Donny Klement, youngest son of elusive multibillionaire Victor Klement. At the time of his death, Donny was putting together a project called the Wishers, for which he had been photographing homeless people, whom he interviewed and then dressed in costumes that aligned with their dream selves, such as those of movie goddesses, Top Gun pilots, intrepid explorers, and ballerinas. Had it been one of these troubled souls who shot Donny in his bed and left him to bleed out? Or does the motive for his death lie in the greed and expectations of the dysfunctional Klement family? Alex, a child psychologist and consultant for the LAPD, and Det. Milo Sturgis discover several suspects with plausible motives, though the solution comes as a bit of a letdown. As usual, the main draw is not the action but the personal relationships. Kellerman, a trained psychologist, brings authenticity to his thoughtful protagonist, as well as a genuine touch of humanity to Alex’s friendship with Milo. This long-running series is still going strong. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

2022-12-14
Once again, best friends Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis tackle a strange murder together.

A woman discovers her boyfriend, billionaire’s son Donny Klement, lying in bed with three bullet holes in his chest. Det. Milo Sturgis asks psychologist Alex Delaware to work with him for the psychological insights he can bring to this oddball murder. The vic was about to give a one-man show of his photography, a project he’d called the Wishers: He dressed up homeless people as the successes they wished they were, photographed them, paid them $500 each, and let them go back to their lives on the street. Donny had felt that homelessness created unnatural histories, and he wanted to show what his subjects’ lives might have been like if they'd been luckier. But how did the homeless people react to the whole experience? Did someone return to whack him? “The Wishers project itself—bringing strangers with troubled histories into his home—seemed potentially explosive,” Delaware muses. And the vic’s family is strange: Rich dad Viktor’s M.O. in life is to marry a beautiful woman, impregnate her, then leave her. He’s done it six times, creating a batch of loosely connected half siblings: “technically a family, but really a collection of strangers.” (Donny isn’t a nickname for Donald, by the way, but for Adonis.) More murders follow in this complicated and unusual plot, and the characters and clever lines make the story fun. Milo is a smart cop who believes that “stupidity is the fertile soil [he] farm[s],” and the big guy sure loves to eat. A woman backs away from him, “as if there was only so much space to go around and he’d just taken a second helping.” And Delaware doesn’t think much of his friend’s taste in ringtones: “As we waited, Milo’s phone played something that could have been extracted from Chopin’s nightmare.”

Kellerman’s legion of fans will eat this up like his detective eats bear claws.

Kirkus Reviews

This is Kellerman at his very best. Just the dialogue between Sturgis and Delaware is worth it. But also, the depiction of Los Angeles is always the star.”—Mystery & Suspense magazine

“Still one of the most talented authors working today, Kellerman dials up yet another page-turning adventure starring Alex Delaware. Riveting and full of twists and turns that’ll keep you glued to the pages, I found this to be one of Kellerman’s best books to date . . . and that’s really saying something when you look at his extraordinary body of work.”—The Real Book Spy

“[Readers] are in the confident hands of a real artist.”—BookPage

“Kellerman, a trained psychologist, brings authenticity to his thoughtful protagonist, as well as a genuine touch of humanity. . . . This long-running series is still going strong.”—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Through the partnership of author Jonathan Kellerman and narrator John Rubinstein, listeners get to ride with Lieutenant Milo Sturgis and psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware on the congested freeways of Los Angeles. Sturgis brings Delaware in to provide a psychological perspective on the murder of a wealthy, young photographer. The victim recently exhibited a controversial photo project featuring homeless people dressed in the clothing of their fantasy professions. The plot is advanced through dialogue between Sturgis and Delaware and the many interviews conducted with potential perpetrators, witnesses, friends, and family. Rubinstein brings to life the conversations and detailed descriptions of people and scenes. He masterfully conveys personalities through pace and accent, and builds tension in the final confrontation. E.Q. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MAY 2023 - AudioFile