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Jonathan Kellerman is a master at creating psychologically nuanced novels of suspense—an author whose name is synonymous with unrelenting action, intriguing plot twists, and penetrating insight into the criminal mind. Now he ventures into bold, new territory with his biggest and best novel yet.A Cold Heartfeatures Kellerman’s brilliant signature style—but in this tour-de-force he mines even deeper the emotional landscape of his characters: psychologist-sleuth Alex Delaware, LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis, Milo’s colleague Petra Connor, and Alex’s ex-lover, Robin Castagna—bringing them all vividly to life as never before. “I’ve got a weird one, so naturally I thought of you,”says Milo Sturgis, summoning his friend Alex to the trendy gallery where a promising young artist has been brutally garroted on the night of her first major showing. What makes it “a weird one” is the lack of any obvious motive, and the luridly careful staging of the murder scene—which immediately suggests to Alex not an impulsive crime of passion . . . but the meticulous and taunting modus operandi of a serial killer. Delaware’s suspicion is borne out when he compares notes with Milo’s associate, Petra Connor, and her new partner, a strange, taciturn detective with a past of his own named Eric Stahl. The Hollywood cops are investigating the vicious death of Baby Boy Lee, a noted blues guitarist, fatally stabbed after a late-night set at a local club. What links Baby Boy’s murder with that of painter Juliet Kipper is the shadowy presence of an abrasive fanzine writer. This alias-shrouded critic’s love-the-art/disdain-the-artist philosophy and his morbid fascination with the murders leads Alex and the detectives to suspect they’re facing a new breed of celebrity stalker: one with a fetish for snuffing out rising stars. Tracking down the killer proves to be maddening, with the twisting trail leading from halfway houses to palatial mansions and from a college campus to the last place Alex ever expected: the doorstep of his ex-lover Robin Castagna, whose business association with two of the victims casts her as an unavoidable player in the unfolding case. As more and more killings are discovered, unraveling the maddening puzzle assumes a chilling new importance—stopping a vicious psychopath who’s made cold-blood murder his chosen art form.… (more)
User reviews
The LAPD are perplexed when a middle-aged blues guitarist and a promising young artist with a druggy past are murdered in quick succession. Petra Conner, reserved detective with a recent break-up, and Alex Delaware, ex-police psychologist, are both
This had the potential to be a great thriller – two sort-of linked cases, both of which are pretty cold, with tenacious investigators, and all sorts of crazy characters lurking on the sidelines. The main characters are strong, tough people with recent personal relationship issues but no bizarre behaviour which can be so limiting in police procedurals.
HOWEVER.
The two main characters (ignoring Milo, who according the blurb is the lynchpin but I didn’t even know who he was when I read the blurb again to do this review) are so similar, with such similar recent relationship troubles, and both perspectives are told in the first person singular, that I actually got the characters mixed up and was really confused when they seemed to be hanging out with people they didn’t know.
Ergo – narrative weakness. And when the plot hadn’t grabbed me by page 100 enough to overcome the extremely confusing double/same character issue, on the DNF list it went.
In terms of the plot, it was actually quite good, it wasn't one of those books where you already know who did it before your a quarter of the way through so it has that going for it.
There are several murders in and around the LA
In this case, a sequence of murders
The point-of-view of each Petra and Alex chapters are separate, and the aspects of the cases they work are clear and unmuddied. In addition to the police procedural chapters there are the psychological insights into the killers' motives: as we trace a car at a junkyard, the questions begin about the young man who abandoned it and what happened in his family to make him commit these crimes.
And of course there is the grit of after-hours Los Angeles alongside the privilege and glitter of Century Center and Bristol. And academia and hard-edged police work and trying to work through personal relationships to humanize the main characters.