Jonathan Kellerman

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About Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Kellerman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than three dozen bestselling 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 Golem of Hollywood and The Golem of Paris. He is also 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 has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California, New Mexico, and New York.

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City of the Dead: An Alex Delaware Novel Feb 8, 2022

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 7,754 )

$14.99

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The past comes back to haunt psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis when they investigate a grisly double homicide and uncover an even more unspeakable motive in this riveting thriller from the bestselling master of suspense.

Los Angeles is a city of sunlight, celebrity, and possibility. The L.A. often experienced by Homicide Lt. Detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware, is a city of the dead.

Early one morning, the two of them find themselves in a neighborhood of pretty houses, pretty cars, and pretty people. The scene they encounter is anything but. A naked young man lies dead in the street, the apparent victim of a collision with a moving van hurtling through suburbia in the darkness. But any thoughts of accidental death vanish when a blood trail leads to a nearby home.

Inside, a young woman lies butchered. The identity of the male victim and his role in the horror remain elusive, but that of the woman creates additional questions. And adding to the shock, Alex has met her while working a convoluted child custody case. Cordelia Gannett was a self-styled internet influencer who’d gotten into legal troubles by palming herself off as a psychologist. Even after promising to desist, she’s found a loophole and has continued her online career, aiming to amass clicks and ads by cyber-coaching and cyber-counseling people plagued with relationship issues.

But upon closer examination, Alex and Milo discover that her own relationships are troublesome, including a tortured family history and a dubious personal past. Has that come back to haunt her in the worst way? Is the mystery man out in the street collateral damage or will he turn out to be the key to solving a grisly double homicide? As the psychologist and the detective explore L.A.'s meanest streets, they peel back layer after layer of secrets and encounter a savage, psychologically twisted, almost unthinkable motive for violence and bloodshed.

This is classic Delaware: Alex, a man Milo has come to see as irreplaceable, at his most insightful and brilliant.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

Alex Delaware: A Mysterious Profile (Mysterious Profiles) May 10, 2022

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 85 )

$2.99

The #1 New York Times–bestselling author discusses his early days as a writer and the creation of his beloved psychologist and sleuth.

In 1985, clinical child psychologist Alex Delaware made his debut in the mystery novel When the Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman. But how did Kellerman create a character who would go on to win him Edgar and Anthony Awards for best first novel and make him a number-one New York Times–bestselling author?

Discover in this short read how Delaware and his friend and partner, police detective Milo Sturgis, came to be. Inside, Kellerman shares his initial struggles with the publishing world and the story behind his first success. He also details when he realized he had a series on his hands and how he developed his heroes into the characters who continue to delight millions of readers decades later.

Praise for the Alex Delaware Novels

“Startling . . . Charged with suspense. This one is simply too good to miss.” —Stephen King on Over the Edge

“Harrowing . . . The work of a novelist of uncommon insight and storytelling skill.” —Los Angeles Times

“High-powered . . . Alex Delaware is no ordinary psychologist. . . . He is also a born detective.” —The New York Times

“An engrossing thriller. . . . This knockout of an entertainment is the kind of book which establishes a career in one stroke.” —Newsday on When the Bough Breaks

Heartbreak Hotel: An Alex Delaware Novel Feb 14, 2017

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 1,663 )

$9.99

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Alex Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis investigate the death of Alex’s most mysterious patient to date in the sensational new thriller from the master of suspense, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman.

At nearly one hundred years old, Thalia Mars is a far cry from the patients that child psychologist Alex Delaware normally treats. But the charming, witty woman convinces Alex to meet with her in a suite at the Aventura, a luxury hotel with a checkered history.

What Thalia wants from Alex are answers to unsettling questions—about guilt, patterns of criminal behavior, victim selection. When Alex asks the reason for her morbid fascination, Thalia promises to tell all during their next session. But when he shows up the following morning, he is met with silence: Thalia is dead in her room.

When questions arise about how Thalia perished, Alex and homicide detective Milo Sturgis must peel back the layers of a fascinating but elusive woman’s life and embark on one of the most baffling investigations either of them has ever experienced. For Thalia Mars is a victim like no other, an enigma who harbored nearly a century of secrets and whose life and death draw those around her into a vortex of violence.

Heartbreak Hotel is classic Delaware and classic Kellerman.

Praise for Heartbreak Hotel

“Easy to dive into for mystery fans unfamiliar with the series, and a welcome treat for readers who have been with Officer Sturgis and Dr. Delaware since the beginning.”—Booklist

Praise for Jonathan Kellerman

“Jonathan Kellerman’s psychology skills and dark imagination are a potent literary mix.”—Los Angeles Times

“Kellerman doesn’t just write psychological thrillers—he owns the genre.”—Detroit Free Press

“A master of the psychological thriller.”—People

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Preloaded Digital Audio Player

Serpentine: An Alex Delaware Novel Feb 2, 2021

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 8,765 )

$9.99

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Psychologist Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis search for answers to a brutal, decades-old crime in this electrifying psychological thriller from the master of suspense.

LAPD homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis is a master detective. He has a near-perfect solve rate and he’s written his own rule book. Some of those successes—the toughest ones—have involved his best friend, the brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware. But Milo doesn’t call Alex in unless cases are “different.”
This murder warrants an immediate call. Milo’s independence has been compromised as never before, as the department pressures him to cater to the demands of a mogul: a hard-to-fathom, megarich young woman who is obsessed with reopening the coldest of cases—the decades-old death of the mother she never knew.

The facts describe a likely loser: a mysterious woman found with a bullet in her head in a torched Cadillac that has overturned on infamously treacherous Mulholland Drive. No physical evidence, no witnesses, no apparent motive. And a slew of detectives have already worked the case and failed. But as Delaware and Sturgis begin digging, the mist begins to lift. Too many coincidences. Facts turn out to be anything but. And as they soon discover, very real threats lurking in the present.

This is Delaware/Sturgis at their best: traversing the beautiful but forbidding place known as Los Angeles and exhuming the past in order to bring a vicious killer to justice.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

The Museum of Desire: An Alex Delaware Novel Feb 4, 2020

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 4,203 )

$9.99

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Psychologist Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis struggle to make sense of a seemingly inexplicable massacre in this electrifying psychological thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.

LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis has solved a lot of murder cases. On many of them—the ones he calls “different”—he taps the brain of brilliant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware. But neither Alex nor Milo are prepared for what they find on an early morning call to a deserted mansion in Bel Air. This one’s beyond different. This is predation, premeditation, and cruelty on a whole new level.

Four people have been slaughtered and left displayed bizarrely and horrifically in a stretch limousine. Confounding the investigation, none of the victims seems to have any connection to any other, and a variety of methods have been used to dispatch them. As Alex and Milo make their way through blind alleys and mazes baited with misdirection, they encounter a crime so vicious that it stretches the definitions of evil.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

When the Bough Breaks (An Alex Delaware Book 1) Jul 6, 2010

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 1,165 )

$9.99

From the New York Times bestselling author of Serpentine comes the first thrilling novel in the Alex Delaware series about a psychotic teenage boy accused of six murders.

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.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio, Cassette

The Burning: A Novel (Clay Edison) Sep 21, 2021

by Jonathan Kellerman, Jesse Kellerman

( 2,348 )

$14.99

Things get personal for Deputy Coroner Clay Edison when a murder hits close to home in this riveting, emotional thriller from the bestselling father-son team who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King).

A raging wildfire. A massive blackout. A wealthy man shot to death in his palatial hilltop home.

For Clay Edison, it’s all in a day’s work. As a deputy coroner, caring for the dead, he speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves. He prides himself on an unflinching commitment to the truth. Even when it gets him into trouble.

Then, while working the murder scene, Clay is horrified to discover a link to his brother, Luke. Horrified. But not surprised. Luke is fresh out of prison and struggling to stay on the straight and narrow.

And now he’s gone AWOL.

The race is on for Clay to find him before anyone else can. Confronted with Luke’s legacy of violence, Clay is forced to reckon with his own suspicions, resentments, and loyalties. Is his brother a killer? Or could he be the victim in all of this, too?

This is Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman at their most affecting and page-turning—a harrowing collision of family, revenge, and murder.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

The Wedding Guest: An Alex Delaware Novel Feb 5, 2019

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 2,686 )

$9.99

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Psychologist Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis unravel a shocking crime at a raucous wedding reception in this gripping psychological thriller from the bestselling master of suspense.

“Jonathan Kellerman’s psychology skills and dark imagination are a potent literary mix.”—Los Angeles Times

LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis is a fine homicide detective, but when he needs to get into the mind of a killer, he leans on the expertise of his best friend, the brilliant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware. While Sturgis has a knack for piecing together the details of a crime, Delaware can decipher the darkest intents driving the most vicious of perpetrators. And there’s no better place for the doctor’s analytical skills to shine than a rowdy hall full of young men and women intoxicated on life and lust . . . and suddenly faced with the specter of death.

Summoned to a run-down former strip joint, Delaware and Sturgis find themselves crashing a wild Saints and Sinners–themed wedding reception. But they’re not the only uninvited guests. A horrified bridesmaid has discovered the body of a young woman, dressed to impress in pricey haute couture and accessorized with a grisly red slash around her neck. What’s missing is any means of identification, or a single partygoer who recognizes the victim. The baffled bride is convinced the stranger snuck in to sabotage her big day—and the groom is sure it’s all a dreadful mistake. But Delaware and Sturgis have a hundred guests to question, and a sneaking suspicion that the motive for murder is personal. Now they must separate the sinners from the saints, the true from the false, and the secrets from those keeping them. The party’s over—and the hunt for whoever killed it is on.

“As usual, [Delaware and Sturgis] form a formidable team. Also as usual, the characters here are varied and described with gritty clarity, and the puzzle facing the duo involves a delightful mix of L.A. culture, this time from its dive bars to its much more serious side.”—Booklist

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

Monster: An Alex Delaware Novel Apr 1, 2003

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 561 )

$9.99

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.

A second-rate actor is found mutilated in a car trunk. Then a psychologist at a Los Angeles hospital for the criminally insane is murdered in a similar grisly fashion. Suddenly the incoherent ramblings of an inmate at the presumably secure institution begin to make chilling sense—they are, in fact, horrifying predictions. Yet how can a barely functional psychotic locked behind asylum walls possibly know such vivid details of crimes committed in the outside world? Drawn into a labyrinth of secrets, revenge, sex, and manipulation, Dr. Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis set out to unlock this enigma and put an end to the brutal killings—before the madman predicts their own demise. . . .

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

Time Bomb: An Alex Delaware Novel May 20, 2003

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 699 )

$5.99

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

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.

“Virtually impossible to put aside until the final horrifying showdown.”—People

While the TV news crews feasted on the scene and 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—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.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

Private Eyes: An Alex Delaware Novel May 20, 2003

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 539 )

$9.99

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The voice belongs to a woman, but Dr. Alex Delaware remembers a little girl. It is eleven years since seven-year-old Melissa Dickinson dialed the hospital help line for comfort—and found it in therapy with Alex Delaware. Now the lovely young heiress is desperately calling for the psychologist’s help once more. Only this time it looks like Melissa’s deepest childhood nightmare is really coming true.

“A page-turner from beginning to end.”—Los Angeles Times

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 years, 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.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

Night Moves: An Alex Delaware Novel Feb 13, 2018

by Jonathan Kellerman

( 2,154 )

$9.99

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The master of the psychological thriller makes all the right moves in this new novel of spellbinding suspense.

Even with all his years of experience, LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis knows there are crimes his skill and savvy cannot solve alone. That’s when he calls on brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware to read between the lines, where the darkest motives lurk. And if ever the good doctor’s insight is needed, it’s at the scene of a murder as baffling as it is brutal.

There’s no spilled blood, no evidence of a struggle, and, thanks to the victim’s missing face and hands, no immediate means of identification. And no telling why the disfigured corpse of a stranger has appeared in an upscale L.A. family’s home. Chet Corvin, his wife, and their two teenage children are certain the John Doe is unknown to them. Despite that, their cooperation seems guarded. And that’s more than Milo and Alex can elicit from the Corvins’ creepy next-door neighbor—a notorious cartoonist with a warped sense of humor and a seriously antisocial attitude.

As the investigation ensues, it becomes clear that this well-to-do suburban enclave has its share of curious eyes, suspicious minds, and loose lips. And as Milo tightens the screws on potential persons of interest—and Alex tries to breach the barriers that guard their deepest secrets—a strangling web of corrupted love, cold-blooded greed, and shattered trust is exposed. Though the grass may be greener on these privileged streets, there’s enough dirt below the surface to bury a multitude of sins. Including the deadliest.

Praise for Night Moves

“Exceptionally well-plotted . . . Newcomers will find this an easy entry point into this long-running series.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A taut, procedural thriller . . . One of the most tightly plotted, tightly written of the Alex Delaware series . . . a real puzzler . . . Fans of the long-running Delaware series will be thrilled with this one, and because each book functions just fine as a stand-alone, there’s nothing keeping new readers from diving in.”—Booklist

“Jonathan Kellerman continues to amaze, dazzle, delight and entertain. . . . Night Moves is simply the best.”—Bookreporter

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

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