Works by
Jonathan Kellerman
(Writer)

Alex Delaware Series
Psychologist detective

1. When the Bough Breaks (1985)
   In the first Alex Delaware novel, Dr.  Morton Handler practiced a strange brand of psychiatry.  Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and  sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when  he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific  Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but  they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old  Melody Quinn.
   
   It's psychologist Dr. Alex  Delaware's job to try to unlock the terrible secret  buried in Melody's memory. But as the sinister  shadows in the girl's mind begin to take shape, Alex  discovers that the mystery touches a shocking  incident in his own past.
   
   This connection is  only the beginning, a single link in a  forty-year-old conspiracy. And behind it lies an unspeakable  evil that Alex Delaware must expose before it  claims another innocent victim: Melody Quinn.

2. Blood Test (1986; 1994 reissue)
   It is a case unlike any psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware has ever encountered. Five-year-old Woody Swope is ill, but the real problem is his parents. They refuse to agree to the one treatment that could save this boy's life.
   
   Alex sets out to convince Mr. and Mrs. Swope--only to find that the parents have left the hospital and taken their son with them. Worse, the sleazy motel room where the Swopes were staying is empty--except for the ominous bloodstain. The Swopes and their son have vanished into the sordid shadows of the city.
   
   Now Alex and his friend, homicide detective Milo Sturgis, have no choice but to push the law to the breaking point. They've entered an amoral underworld where drugs, dreams, and sex are all for sale...where fantasies are fulfilled at any price--even at the cost of a young boy's life.

3. Over the Edge (1987)
   When the phone rings in the middle of the night, child psychologist Alex Delaware does not hesitate. Driving through the dream-lit San Fernando Valley, Alex rushes to Jamey Cadmus, the patient he had failed five years before—and who now calls with a bizarre cry for help. But by the time Alex reaches Canyon Oaks Psychiatric Hospital, Jamey is gone, surfacing a day later in the hands of the police, who believe Jamey is the infamous Lavender Slasher, a psychotic serial killer. Wooed by a high-powered attorney to build a defense, Alex will get a chance to do what he couldn’t five years ago. And when he peers into a family’s troubled history and Jamey’s brilliant, tormented mind, the psychologist puts himself at the heart of a high-profile case. Because Alex knows that in a realm of money, loss, and madness, something terrible pushed Jamie over the edge—or else someone is getting away with murder.

4. Silent Partner (1989)
   At a party for a  controversial Los Angeles sex therapist, Alex  encounters a face from his own past--Sharon Ransom, an  exquisite, alluring lover who left him abruptly more  than a decade earlier. Sharon now hints that he  desperately needs help, but Alex evades her. The  next day she is dead, an apparent suicide. Driven by  guilt and sadness, Alex plunges into the maze of  Sharon's life--a journey that will take him through  the pleasure palaces of California's ultra-rich,  into the dark closets of a family's disturbing  past, and finally into the alleyways of the mind,  where childhood terrors still hold sway.

5. Time Bomb (1990)
   By the time psychologist Dr. Alex  Delaware reached the school the damage was done:  A sniper had opened fire on a crowded playground,  but was gunned down before any children were  hurt.  While  the TV news crews feasted on the scene an Alex  began his therapy sessions with the traumatized  children, he couldn't escape the image of a slight  teenager clutching an oversized rifle. What was the  identity behind the name and face: a would-be  assassin, or just another victim beneath an  indifferent California sky?
   
   Intrigued by a request from the sniper's father  to conduct a "psychological autopsy" of  his child, Alex begins to uncover a strange  pattern of innocence, neglect, and loss. Then suddenly  it is more than a pattern -- it is a trail of  blood. In the dead sniper's past was a dark and  vicious plot. And in Alex Delaware's future is the  stuff of grown-up nightmares: the face of real  human evil.

6. Private Eyes (1992)
   The voice belongs to a woman, but Dr. Alex  Delaware remembers a little girl. It is eleven  years since seven-years-old Melissa Dickinson dialed  a hospital help line for comfort--and found it in  therapy with Alex Delaware. Now the lovely young  heiress is desperately calling for psychologist's  help once more. Only this time it looks like  Melissa's deepest childhood nightmare is really  coming true ...  Twenty years ago, Gina Dickinson, Melissa's  mother, suffered a grisly assault that left the budding  actress irreparably scarred and emotionally  crippled. Now her acid-wielding assailant is out of  prison and back in L.A.--and Melissa is terrified  that the monster has returned to hurt Gina again.  But before Alex Delaware  can even begin to soothe his former patient's  fears, Gina, a recluse for twenty, disappears. And  now, unless Delaware turns crack detective to  uncover the truth, Gina Dickinson will be just one  more victim of a cold fury that has already spawned  madness--and murder.

7. Devil's Waltz (1993)
   The doctors call it Munchausen by proxy, the  terrifying disease that causes parents to induce  illness in their own children. Now, in his most  frightening case, Dr. Alex Delaware may have to prove  that a child's own mother or father is making her  sick.
   
   Twenty-one-month-old Cassie Jones  is bright, energetic, the picture of health. Yet  her parents rush her to the emergency room night  after night with medical symptoms no doctor can  explain. Cassie's parents seem sympathetic and  deeply concerned. Her favorite nurse is a model of  devotion. Yet when child psychologist Alex  Delaware is called in to investigate, instinct tells him  that one of them may be a monster.
   
   Then  a physician at the hospital is brutally murdered.  A shadowy death is revealed. And Alex and his  friend LAPD detective Milo Sturgis have only hours  to uncover the link between these shocking events  and the fate of an innocent child.

8. Bad Love (1994)
   It came in a plain brown wrapper, no return  address--an audiocassette recording of a horrifying,  soul-lacerating scream, followed by the sound of a  childlike voice chanting: "Bad love. Bad love.  Don't give me the bad love... ". For Alex  Delaware the tape is the first intimation that he is  about to enter a living nightmare. Others soon  follow: disquieting laughter echoing over a phone  line that suddenly goes dead, a chilling act of  trespass and vandalism. He has become the target of a  carefully orchestrated campaign of vague threats  and intimidation rapidly building to a crescendo as  harassment turns to terror, mischief to madness.  With the help of his friend LAPD detective Milo  Sturgis, Alex uncovers a series of violent deaths  that may follow a diabolical pattern. And if he fails  to decipher the twisted logic of the stalker's  mind games, Alex will be the next to die. Taut,  penetrating, terrifying, Bad Love is  vintage Kellerman

9. Self-Defense (1995)
   Dr. Alex Delaware doesn’t see many private patients anymore, but the young woman called Lucy is an exception. So is her dream. Lucy Lowell is referred to Alex by Los Angeles police detective Milo Sturgis. A juror at the agonizing trial of a serial killer, Lucy survived the trauma only to be tormented by a recurring nightmare: a young child in the forest at night, watching a strange and furtive act.
   
   Now Lucy’s dream is starting to disrupt her waking life, and Alex is concerned. The power of the dream, its grip on Lucy’s emotions, suggests to him that it may be more than a nightmare. It may be the repressed childhood memory of something very real. Something like murder.

10. The Web (1996)
    Three months in paradise, all expenses paid. It's an invitation Alex Delaware can't refuse. Dr. Woodrow Wilson Moreland, a revered scientist and philanthropist on the tiny Pacific island of Aruk, has invited Alex to his home to help him organize his papers for publication-- a light workload leaving Alex plenty of time to enjoy a romantic interlude with Robin Castagna.
    
    Quickly, however, secretive houseguests, frightening nocturnal visitors, and the elusive Dr. Moreland himself dim the pleasures of deep blue water and white
    sand.
    
    The cases Moreland chooses to share--a patient driven to madness by a cruel, unspeakable act; a man who succumbed forty years ago to radiation poisoning after a nuclear blast; a young woman, brutally murdered, whose mutilated body was found on the beach just six months before-- seem unconnected. And yet Alex can't help wondering what the good doctor is trying to tell him...and what Moreland's real reason for inviting him to Aruk is.
    
    As Alex probes--with a little long-distance help from his friend LAPD detective Milo Sturgis--he comes to believe the answer lies hidden somewhere on Moreland's vast estate. Yet when he finally discovers the truth, the revelation will be more shocking than he could have imagined. And it will come too late to stem the tide of violence that threatens guilty and innocent alike on the lovely lost island of Aruk.
    
    Once again, with his brilliant characterizations and rapid-fire pace, Jonathan Kellerman has redefined the boundaries of suspense, probing real-life horrors and innermost fears in a novel that transfixes from first page to last.

11. The Clinic (1997)
    She was found stabbed to death on a quiet, shady street in one of L.A.'s safest neighborhoods. For three months the police have found no clues to the murder of
    Hope Devane, psychology professor and controversial author of a pop-psych bestseller, an angry indictment of men. Now Detective Milo Sturgis, newly assigned to the case, turns to his psychologist friend, Dr. Alex Delaware, looking for insights into Devane's life.
    
    To both men the cold stalking of Hope Devane suggests calculation fueled by hate--an execution. They discover why as they unlock, one by one, the very
    private compartments of her life: her marriage, her shadowy work for a Beverly Hills clinic, the Conduct Committee she ran with an iron hand at the
    University, and her baffling link to another murder victim. But it is when Alex delves into her childhood that he begins to understand the formidable woman she was--and the ties that entangled her life until the horrifying act of betrayal that ended it.  Building to a white-knuckle climax in which Alex sets a trap
    for a killer, The Clinic is brilliantly plotted suspense as wrenchingly disturbing as today's headlines.

12. Survival of the Fittest (1997)
    The slightly retarded fifteen-year-old daughter of a diplomat dies on a school field trip--forced or lured into a deserted corner of the Santa Monica mountains and killed in cold blood.  Her father adamantly denies the possibility of a political motive, which leaves LAPD detective Milo Sturgis and his longtime friend psychologist Alex Delaware to pose the question: Why?
    
    There are no signs of struggle, no evidence of sexual assault--and there are no easy answers.  Just one innocent youngster...dead.
    
    The victim's father is so intent on controlling the investigation that Alex and Milo start to wonder if he wants to bring out the truth--or make sure it stays buried.  Then there is another killing, and within days Alex finds himself ensnared in one of the darkest, most menacing cases of his career.
    
    Driven to find answers, he and Milo will work closely with Inspector Daniel Sharavi, the brilliant Israeli police detective introduced in Jonathan Kellerman's The Butcher's Theater.  In the end, though, it is Alex who will go undercover, alone, to expose the smug brutality of a murderous conspiracy and a terrifying contempt for human life.  Weaving together the threads of a mystery that lead from a child's murder to a young scientist's suicide, Jonathan Kellerman draws one of the most chilling, frighteningly realistic portraits of evil you will ever experience.

13. Monster  (1999) -- Nominee 2000 Shamus Award for Best Novel
    A marginal actor is found dead in a car trunk, sawn in half. Months later, a psychologist at a hospital for the criminally insane is discovered murdered and mutilated in a tantalizingly similar way. When reports of an inmate's incoherent ramblings begin to make frightening sense as predictions of yet more slayings, Delaware and Sturgis are drawn into a web of family secrets, vengeance, and manipulation--both inside the asylum and on the streets of L.A., where death, drugs, and sex are marketed as commodities. The climactic discovery they make as they race to prevent more killings gives fresh and terrifying meaning to the concept of monstrosity.
    
    With Monster's incomparably deft characterizations and dazzlingly dark plot twists, Jonathan Kellerman further enhances his literary position as master of the psychological thriller.

• Omnibus (1999)
  The Web and Bad Love

14. Dr. Death (2000)
    A brutalized corpse discovered in a remote region of the Hollywood Hills plunges psychologist detective Alex Delaware into a landscape of rage and madness as he struggles to solve this most baffling of homicides.
    
    To some, Eldon Mate was evil personified. Others saw the former physician as a saint. But one thing was clear: Dr. Death had snuffed out the lives of dozens of human beings and now someone had turned him into a victim. When Mate is found mutilated in a rented van, harnessed to his own killing machine, Delaware is asked to aid his old friend, homicide cop Milo Sturgis, in the hunt for the death doctor's executioner. But Alex harbors secrets of his own that threaten to derail the partners? friendship as well as the increasingly complex investigation. With page-turning suspense and vivid portraits of L.A.'s darkest side, perennial bestseller Jonathan Kellerman's latest tale of psychopathology taken to the extreme delivers an unforgettable journey into the most sinister corners of the human mind.

• The First Alex Delaware Omnibus (2001)

15. Flesh and Blood (2001)
    Lauren Teague is a beautiful, defiant, borderline delinquent teenager when her parents bring her to Dr. Alex Delaware’s office. Lauren angrily resists Alex’s help–and the psychologist is forced to chalk Lauren up as one of the inevitable failures of his profession. Years later, when Alex and Lauren come face-to-face in a shocking encounter, both doctor and patient are stricken with shame. But the ultimate horror takes place when, soon after, Lauren’s brutalized corpse is found dumped in an alley. Alex disregards the advice of his trusted friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, and jeopardizes his relationship with longtime lover, Robin Castagna, in order to pursue Lauren’s killer. As he investigates his young patient’s troubled past, Alex enters the shadowy worlds of fringe psychological experimentation and the sex industry–and then into mortal danger, when lust and big money collide in an unforgiving Los Angeles.

16. The Murder Book (2002)
    The nightmare begins when Alex receives a strange package in the mail with no return address. Inside is an ornate album filled with gruesome crime scene photos—a homicide scrapbook entitled The Murder Book. Alex can find no reason for anyone to send him this compendium of death, but when Milo views the book, he is immediately shaken by one of the images: a young woman, tortured, strangled, and dumped near a freeway ramp.
    
    This was one of Milo’s first cases as a rookie homicide cop: a vicious killing that he failed to solve, because just as he and his training partner began to make headway, the department closed them down. Being forced to abandon the young victim tormented Milo. But his fears prevented him from pursuing the truth, and over the years he managed to forget. Or so he thought.
    
    Now, two decades later, someone has chosen to stir up the past. As Alex and Milo set out to uncover what really happened twenty years ago, their every move is followed and their lives are placed in jeopardy. The relentless investigation reaches deep into L.A.’s nerve-centers of power and wealth—past and present. While peeling back layer after layer of ugly secrets, they discover that the murder of one forgotten girl has chilling ramifications that extend far beyond the tragic loss of a single life.
    
    A classic story of good and evil, sacrifice and sin, The Murder Book is a gripping page-turner that illuminates the darkest corridors of the human mind. It is a stunning tour de force.

17. A Cold Heart (2003)
    “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.

18. Devil's Waltz / Bad Love (2003)
    New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman is one of the world's most popular writers, with tens of millions of his books in print in two dozen languages. He has brought his expertise as a child psychologist to numerous tales of suspense, including fourteen critically acclaimed and bestselling novels featuring child psychologist sleuth Alex Delaware. Now, for the first time, here are two of his popular Alex Delaware books in one volume. Taunt, penetrating, terrifying, Devil's Waltz and Bad Love are Kellerman at his best. From the hospital to the street, Delaware follows mysterious killers in two of the most suspenseful works ever, tracking them down through a combination of keen perception and psychological expertise. In Devil's Waltz, Delaware explores a dark side of parental love. In Bad Love, Delaware follows the twisted logic of a stalker's mind games, aware that next the stalker may be coming for him. In both, weaving a web of disturbing events that will thrill and captivate as he reveals their stunning conclusions.

19. Double Homicide (2004) with Faye Kellerman
    For the first time ever, bestselling novelists Jonathan Kellerman and Faye Kellerman team up to deliver the launch book in a thrilling new series of short crime novels! It's a reader's dream come true: a new series co-written by the royal couple of crime fiction--Jonathan and Faye Kellerman! Each book contains two novels jointly written by the duo, featuring different detectives solving crimes in different cities. In the Land of the Giants has Boston homicide detectives Michael MacCain and Doris Sylvestor investigating the suspicious death of a college basketball star. And in Still Life, the co-worker of a Santa Fe art gallery is murdered, forcing detectives Darryl Two Moons and Steve Katz to put aside holiday celebrations and set things right.

20. Therapy (2004)
    “Been a while since I had me a nice little whodunit,” homicide detective Milo Sturgis tells Alex Delaware. But there’s definitely nothing nice about the brutal tableau behind the yellow crime-scene tape. On a lonely lover’s lane in the hills of Los Angeles, a young couple lies murdered in a car. Each bears a single gunshot wound to the head. The female victim has also been impaled by a metal spike. And that savage stroke of psychopathic fury tells Milo this case will call for more than standard police procedure. As he explains to Delaware, “Now we’re veering into your territory.”
    
    It is dark territory, indeed. The dead woman remains unidentified and seemingly unknown to everyone. But her companion has a name: Gavin Quick—and his troubled past eventually landed him on a therapist’s couch. It’s there, on familiar turf, that Delaware hopes to find vital clues. And that means going head-to-head with Dr. Mary Lou Koppel, a popular celebrity psychologist who fiercely guards the privacy of her clients . . . dead or alive.
    
    But when there’s another gruesomely familiar murder, Delaware surmises that his investigation has struck a nerve. As he trolls the twisted wreckage of Quick’s tormented last days, what he finds isn’t madness, but the cold-blooded method behind it. And as he follows a chain of greed, corruption, and betrayal snaking hideously through the profession he thought he knew, he’ll discover territory where even he never dreamed of treading.
    
    As provocative as it is suspenseful, Therapy is premier Kellerman that finds the award-winning author firing on all creative cylinders—and carrying readers on an electrifying ride to a place only he can take them, for an experience they won’t soon forget.

21. Rage (2005)
    Troy Turner and Rand Duchay were barely teenagers when they kidnapped and murdered a younger child. Troy, a remorseless sociopath, died violently behind bars. But the hulking, slow-witted Rand managed to survive his stretch. Now, at age twenty-one, he’s emerged a haunted, rootless young man with a pressing need: to talk–once again–with psychologist Alex Delaware. But the young killer comes to a brutal end, that conversation never takes place.
    
    Has karma caught up with Rand? Or has someone waited for eight patient years to dine on ice-cold revenge? Both seem strong possibilities to Sturgis, but Delaware’s suspicions run deeper . . . and darker. Because fear in the voice of the grownup Rand Duchay–and his eerie final words to Alex: “I’m not a bad person”–betray untold secrets. Buried revelations so horrendous, and so damning, they’re worth killing for.
    
    As Delaware and Sturgis retrace their steps through a grisly murder case that devastated a community, they discover a chilling legacy of madness, suicide, and multiple killings left in its wake–and even uglier truths waiting to be unearthed. And the nearer they come to understanding an unspeakable crime, the more harrowingly close they get to unmasking a monster hiding in plain sight.
    
    Rage finds Jonathan Kellerman in phenomenal form–orchestrating a relentlessly suspenseful, devilishly unpredictable plot to a finale as stunning and thought-provoking as it is satisfying.

• Four Alex Delaware Novels (2005)
  Flesh and Blood, The Murder Book, A Cold Heart, and Therapy

15. Gone (2006)
    It’s a story tailor-made for the nightly news: Dylan Meserve and Michaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting students, vanish on the way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the two of them are found in the remote mountains of Malibu -battered and terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor.
    
    The details of the nightmarish event are shocking and brutal: The couple was carjacked at gunpoint by a masked assailant and subjected to a horrific regimen of confinement, starvation and assault.
    
    But before long, doubts arise about the couple’s story, and as forensic details unfold, the abduction is exposed as a hoax. Charged as criminals themselves, the aspiring actors claim emotional problems, and the court orders psychological evaluation for both.
    
    Michaela is examined by Alex Delaware, who finds that her claims of depression and stress ring true enough. But they don’t explain her lies, and Alex is certain that there are hidden layers in this sordid psychodrama that even he hasn’t been able to penetrate.
    
    Nevertheless, the case is closed–only to be violently reopened when Michaela is savagely murdered. When the police look for Dylan, they find that he’s gone. Is he the killer or a victim himself? Casting their dragnet into the murkiest corners of L.A., Delaware and Sturgis unearth more questions than answers–including a host of eerily identical killings. What really happened to the couple who cried wolf? And what bizarre and brutal epidemic is infecting the city with terror, madness, and sudden, twisted death?

16. Obsession (2007)
    Tanya Bigelow was a solemn little girl when Dr. Alex Delaware successfully treated her obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Now, at nineteen, she still seems older than her years–but her problems go beyond hyper-maturity. Patty Bigelow, Tanya’s aunt and adoptive mother, has made a deathbed confession of murder and urged the young woman to seek Delaware’s help. The doctor recalls Patty as a selfless E.R. nurse struggling to raise a child on her own–a woman seemingly incapable of the “terrible thing” she has admitted. But for Tanya’s peace of mind, Delaware agrees to investigate, and he enlists LAPD detective Milo Sturgis in the search for the phantom victim of a crime that may never have occurred.
    
    Armed with only the vaguest details, psychologist and cop follow a trail twisting from L.A.’s sleaziest low-rent districts to its overblown mansions, retracing Patty and Tanya’s nomadic and increasingly puzzling life to the doorsteps of a sullen heroin addict; a randy real-estate broker; and a brilliant, enigmatic physics student. Suddenly a very real murder tears open a terrifying tunnel into the past, where secrets–and bodies–are buried. As the tension mounts, Delaware and Sturgis uncover a tangled history of desperation, vengeance, and death–a legacy of evil that refuses to die.

17. Compulsion (2008)
    Once again, the depths of the criminal mind and the darkest side of a glittering city fuel #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman’s brilliant storytelling. And no one conducts a more harrowing and suspenseful manhunt than the modern Sherlock Holmes of the psyche, Dr. Alex Delaware.
    
    A tipsy young woman seeking aid on a desolate highway disappears into the inky black night. A retired schoolteacher is stabbed to death in broad daylight. Two women are butchered after closing time in a small-town beauty parlor. These and other bizarre acts of cruelty and psychopathology are linked only by the killer’s use of luxury vehicles and a baffling lack of motive. The ultimate whodunits, these crimes demand the attention of LAPD detective Milo Sturgis and his collaborator on the crime beat, psychologist Alex Delaware.
    
    What begins with a solitary bloodstain in a stolen sedan quickly spirals outward in odd and unexpected directions, leading Delaware and Sturgis from the well-heeled center of L.A. society to its desperate edges; across the paths of commodities brokers and transvestite hookers; and as far away as New York City, where the search thaws out a long-cold case and exposes a grotesque homicidal crusade. The killer proves to be a fleeting shape-shifter, defying identification, leaving behind dazed witnesses and death–and compelling Alex and Milo to confront the true face of murderous madness.

18. Evidence (2009)
    In the half-built skeleton of a monstrously vulgar mansion in one of L.A.’s toniest neighborhoods, a watchman stumbles on the bodies of a young couple–murdered in flagrante and left in a gruesome postmortem embrace. Though he’s cracked some of the city’s worst slayings, veteran homicide cop Milo Sturgis is still shocked at the grisly sight: a twisted crime that only Milo’s killer instincts–and psychologist Alex Delaware’s keen insights–can hope to solve.
    
    While the female victim’s identity remains a question mark, her companion is ID’d as eco-friendly architect Desmond Backer, who disdains the sort of grandiose superstructure he’s found dead in. And the late Mr. Backer, it’s revealed was also notorious for his power to seduce women.
    
    The rare exception is his ex-boss, Helga Gemein, who’s as indifferent to Desmond’s death as she apparently was to his advances. Though Milo and Alex place her on their short list of suspects, the deeper they dig for clues the longer the list grows. An elusive prince who appears to harbor decidedly American appetites, an eccentric blueblood with an ax to grind, one of Desmond’s restless ex-lovers and her cuckolded husband–all are in the homicidal mix spiced with eco-terrorism, arson, blackmail, conspiracy, and a vendetta that runs deep. But when the investigation veers suddenly in a startling direction, it’s the investigators who may wind up on the wrong end of a cornered predator’s final fury.

1. Billy Straight (1998)
   A resourceful runaway alone in the wilds of Los Angeles, twelve-year-old Billy Straight suddenly witnesses a brutal stabbing in Griffith Park. Fleeing into the night, Billy cannot shake the horrific memory of the savage violence, nor the pursuit of a cold-blooded killer. For wherever Billy turns—from Hollywood Boulevard to the boardwalks of Venice—he is haunted by the chuck chuck sound of a knife sinking into flesh. As LAPD homicide detective Petra Connor desperately searches for the murderer, as the media swarms mercilessly around the story, the vicious madman stalks closer to his prey. Only Petra can save Billy. But it will take all her cunning to uncover a child lost in a fierce urban labyrinth—where a killer seems right at home. . . .

2. Twisted (2004)
   Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor has helped psychologist Alex Delaware crack tough cases in the past. And in Jonathan Kellerman’s New York Times bestseller Billy Straight she took the lead in the desperate hunt for a teenage runaway stalked by a vengeful murderer. Now the complex and wryly compassionate Petra is once again at the center of the action, in a novel of cunning twists and page-turning suspense.
   
   Lifeless bodies sprawl in a dance-club parking lot after a brutal L.A. drive-by. Of the four seemingly random victims, one stands out: a girl with pink shoes who cannot be identified–and who, days later, remains a Jane Doe. With zero leads and no apparent motive, it’s another case destined for the cold file–until Petra decides to follow her instincts and descends into a world of traveling grifters and bloodthirsty killers, pursuing a possible eyewitness whose life is in mortal danger.
   
   Finding her elusive quarry–alive–isn’t all Petra has on her plate: departmental politics threatens to sabotage her case, and her personal life isn’t doing much better. If all that wasn’t enough, Isaac Gomez, a whiz-kid grad student researching homicide statistics at the station house, is convinced he’s stumbled upon a bizarre connection between several unsolved murders. The victims had nothing in common, yet each died by the same method, on the same date–a date that’s rapidly approaching again. And that leaves Petra with little time to unravel the twisted logic of a cunning predator who’s evaded detection for years–and whose terrible hour is once more at hand.

• The Conspiracy Club (2003)
  When his brief, passionate romance with nurse Jocelyn Banks is cut short by her kidnapping and brutal murder, young psychologist Jeremy Carrier is left emotionally devastated, haunted by his lover’s grisly demise and warily eyed by police still seeking a prime suspect in the unsolved slaying. To escape the pain, he buries himself in his work at City Central Hospital–only to be drawn deeper into a waking nightmare when more women turn up murdered in the same gruesome fashion as Jocelyn . . . and the suspicion surrounding Jeremy intensifies. Now, the only way to prove his innocence and put his torment to rest is to follow the deadly trail of a modern-day Jack the Ripper.

• The Butcher's Theater (1988)
  They call the ancient hills of Jerusalem the  butcher's theater. Here, upon this bloodstained stage,  a faceless killer performs his violent specialty:  The first to die brutally is a fifteen-year-old  girl. She is drained of blood, then carefully bathed  and shrouded in white. Precisely one week later, a  second victim is found. From the sacred  Wailing Wall to the monasteries where dark secrets  are cloistered, from black-clad bedouin enclaves  to labyrinthine midnight alleys, veteran police  inspector Daniel Sharavi and his crack team plunge  deep into a city simmering with religious and  political passions to hunt for a murderer whose  insatiable taste for young women could destroy the  delicate balance on which Jerusalem's very survival  depends.
  
  A brilliant novel by a master of  the genre, a vivid look at the tortured  complexities of a psychopath's mind, a rich evocation of a  city steeped in history -- this, and more, is  The Butcher's Theater.

• Daddy, Daddy, Can You Touch the Sky? (1994) with his son, Jesse Kellerman
  Six poems designed to develop strong identity concepts.

• Capital Crimes (2006) with Faye Kellerman
  Internationally bestselling novelists each in their own right, husband and wife Jonathan and Faye Kellerman team up for a powerful one-two punch with Capital Crimes, a gripping pair of original crime thrillers set in two cities rich in atmosphere, and featuring appearances by the authors’ signature heroes: LAPD lieutenant Peter Decker and psychologist sleuth Dr. Alex Delaware.
  
  MY SISTER’S KEEPER: BERKELEY
  Progressive state representative Davida Grayson fits in well with her Berkeley constituents. But some of Davida’s views have made her unpopular elsewhere. Davida’s foes are numerous: politicians on the other side of the aisle, racist hate mongers, even dissenters in her own party. Still, no one suspects that any buttons Davida might push could evoke deadly force.
  
  But now Davida lies brutally murdered in her office, and Berkeley homicide detectives Will Barnes and Amanda Isis must unravel Davida’s complex, surprising life in order to find her killer. As they dig deeper, Will and Amanda realize that the real Davida Grayson was someone the public never knew. The investigation draws the detectives into a labyrinth of hidden sexuality, dark secrets, betrayal, and bloody vengeance that leads tortuously into madness. With time short and the suspect list long, Barnes and Isis must find the answers before the killer pulls off a repeat performance.
  
  MUSIC CITY BREAKDOWN: NASHVILLE
  Baker Southerby, the son of musicians, was a child prodigy performer. But something Baker won’t talk about leads him to quit the honky-tonk circuit, become a Nashville cop, and never look back. His partner, Lamar Van Gundy, is a would-be studio bassist from up North who never quite made the cut in Music City, so instead earned himself a detective’s badge. Now both men are members of Nashville PD’s elite Murder Squad, with a solid record for solves. But when they catch a homicide that’s high-profile even for a city where musical celebrity is routine, their skills are tested: Jack Jeffries, a rock legend who cast aside personal demons and emerged from retirement to perform at a charity benefit, has been discovered in a ditch near the Cumberland River, his throat slashed.
  
  It’s a whodunit as heartbreaking as it is baffling. Southerby and Van Gundy understand the rhythms of the music biz as intimately as the streets they work–and know that both have their dark sides. What the detectives don’t realize is just how high the price of success can be. Long before the last notes of Jack Jeffries’s final song have faded, Southerby and Van Gundy will learn about the dangers of concealing a hidden past . . . the hard way. Capital Crimes is page-turning, psychologically resonant suspense–just what we’ve come to expect from two of the world’s most successful crime writers.

• With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars (2008)
  For thirty-five years, bestselling author and accomplished musician Jonathan Kellerman has been, as he puts it in his Introduction to this lavishly illustrated, endlessly fascinating volume, “chasing fabulous sound.” The result of that quest is a world-class collection of guitars, mandolins, and other stringed instruments that number more than 120 . . . and counting.
  
  Kellerman takes us on a fascinating guided tour through his collection, complete with rich personal histories of his favorite instruments and of the brilliant, often eccentric craftsmen and musicians who brought them to life. It is a record of one man’s lifelong love affair with the guitar . . . and it is much, much more.
  
  Whether writing about household names such as Fender, Gibson, Martin, and Dobro or about marques revered by aficionados–D’Angelico, Hauser, Stromberg, and Torres–Kellerman brings to bear the same sure storytelling instincts and keen attention to detail that characterize his bestselling fiction, making each entry a sparkling mini-essay as much to be savored as the sensual photographs that follow.
  
  Your fingers won’t be walking through With Strings Attached. They’ll be strumming. Picking. Stroking.
  
  And dancing.

• Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children (1999)
  "Ethically and morally, kids are works in progress. Throw in psychopathy and you've got a soul that will never be complete."
  
  In this powerful, disturbing book, bestselling author and noted child psychologist Jonathan Kellerman shines a penetrating light on antisocial youth--kids who kill without remorse--asserting that "psychopathic tendencies begin very early in life, as young as three, and they endure." Criticizing our quick impulse to blame violent movies or a "morally bankrupt" society, Kellerman convinces us that it is the kids themselves who need to be examined. Carefully.
  
  How do children become cold-blooded killers? Kellerman warns that today's aggressive bully is tomorrow's Mafia don, cult leader, or genocidal dictator. Violently psychopathic youths possess an overriding need for power, control, and stimulation, and all display a complete lack of regard for the humanity of others. He examines the origins of psychopathy and the ever-shifting debate between nurture and nature, offering some controversial solutions to dealing with homicidal tendencies in children.
  
  As timely as today's headlines, more gripping than fiction, Savage Spawn is a provocative look at the links between society and biology, children and violence. Kellerman's sobering message will remain with you long after the last page is turned.

• Diagnosis Dead: A Mystery Writers of America Anthology (1999)
  Jonathan Kellerman knows the nature of evil. Through fourteen bestselling novels of psychological suspense, his incisive explorations of the dark recesses of the criminal mind have challenged our traditional notions of crime and justice, hunter and prey. Now he heads an all-star lineup of contemporary mystery writers in an outstanding anthology of short crime stories, each a breakneck ride to where fear and greed meet violence and revenge.
   

  • MAX ALLAN COLLINS proves that when it comes to insurance, sometimes murder is the best policy ...

  • JEREMIAH HEALY follows a mob trial where a court officer may become judge, jury, and executioner ...

  • CAROLYN WHEAT unleashes a clever dog to sniff out the terrible truth about a missing child ...

  • FAYE KELLERMAN reports on a newsman's uncanny ability to get the scoop and extract a story ...

  • JOHN LUTZ scripts a deadly role for a wannabe actress who knows that while the camera doesn't lie, people do ...

  • MARILYN WALLACE twists a doctor's oath into a deadly prescription for justice....

  • NANCY PICKARD introduces a washed-out cleaning woman with special powers over a defendant's guilt or innocence ...

  ...and seven other chilling tales of crime and punishment from today's best mystery thriller writers.

• Great Writers and Kids Write Mystery Stories (1997) by Martin H. Greenberg
  A collection of thirteen original tales by authors of adult fiction in collaboration with their children or grandchildren.

• Helping the Fearful Child: A Parents' Guide to Everyday and Problem Anxieties (1981)