Kellerman's Phone Bills off the Charts for Rage
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Author: Jonathan Kellerman
Title: Rage Genre: mystery When it comes to positively gut-wrenching windows on the condition of our society, few views are worse than kids killing kids. That's why the case of a toddler named Krista Malley seemed so riveting: two boys not quite into their teens had simply walked out of a shopping mall with the toddler dangling between them, and that was all she wrote for little Krista. Alex Delaware got involved in his capacity as child psychologist, for the judge had hoped he'd be able to answer the court's most burning question: should these two be tried as adults? They weren't - and now, eight years later, one of them, fresh out of jail, has come looking for Delaware. "I'm not a bad person," he told the shrink in an after-hours telephone call asking for a confab. But Rand Duchay's body was found later that night: he never showed up for the meeting with Delaware. It should probably have been just written off as an ordinary killing. It would have, except for the slightly "off" sensation Delaware and running buddy, Lt. Milo Sturgis, picked up from the folks who'd been giving Rand a place to stay after he'd been discharged. Something didn't seem quite right with the former divinity students turned foster-care enterprise. And when Alex and Milo found out that there had been three other suspicious deaths connected with that case almost a decade old, alarms started going off all over LA. What the unlikely pair found was a tangle of criminal enterprise reaching back almost a decade; back all the way to some astonishing revelations about a little girl's death. Things are never as they seem - and that apparently extends to Delaware's private life as well... Yep, he's at it again, although by "him" one might mean either fictional Alex Delaware or his real-life creator, Jonathan Kellerman. Now about eighteen novels into a series fe aturing the dapper Doctor Delaware (and a couple into a second series featuring Petra Connor), Kellerman appears to have long since hit his stride. He routinely works snide little political statements into the text; and always casts Delaware as well nigh omniscient. The amazin' Alex may have drifted from the heart of the divine Robin, but he's made do well in bedding his gun-totin' fellow shrink, Allison. Kellerman still carefully describes the clothing of his female characters down to the brand names -- Kramer [had] a tight, leggy figure emphasized by black chalk-stripe pipe-stem pants, and a tailored gray jacket over a white silk shell. Her hair was ink-black, cut short and spiked. No Jewelry. Black Kate Spade purse. -- while apparently having no idea that brands such as Cherokee, Dockers, or Levis ever existed, or that males wear brand names, too. In fact, however, little here truly differs from the execution of the mechanics in such prior novels as The Web or Dr. Death. And yet Rage has a different feel about it when compared to most of the previous Delaware oeuvre. Unlike other novels in the series, this installment lacks a central theme; lacks an evil villain who embodies Kellerman's distaste for everything on the "wrong" side of the social issue of the moment. And without his customary laser focus on abortion or pornography or euthanasia, Kellerman's plot turns sour, aimlessly seeking a central idea upon which it can depend. There is none, and thus the plot wallows like an overloaded barge in high seas. What starts off seemingly as a typical kellerman treatise on a social issue - perhaps juvenile murders or the state of juvenile incarceration - gets frittered away in a sideways digression into the child welfare system, hypocritical Christians, and abortion. It's as if Kellerman got lost somewhere in there. The plotting is not the only weakness in Rage. In no other Kellerman novel in my memory has the author so clearly stereotyped his characters. One can almost spot the perpetrator at his/her first appearance based on the character's personal appearance. People who don't look like the dapper Delaware - well-pressed tweedy suit, spit-shined shoes, razor-cut hair - are bad. People who do look like him and those of his ilk are good. Fat? bad. Skinny? bad Slender? goooood... Flat characters - the founder of a seminary, troubled teens, a Bulgarian abortionist, and the like - might as well have been chosen straight out of Central Casting. The villain is certainly reprehensible enough - evil deeds galore here, including some of Kellerman's pet issues - but simply lacks "ooomph." So this is a really bad person? So what. And what's with that title? There's not a bit of real Rage anywhere in the entire novel. It's as if the publisher got confused in an all-consuming desire to have a one-word title. If they'd asked me, I'd've said to call it Clinker. or maybeStinker. Kellerman fans will, of course, devour the latest installment. But in my estimation, Jon and Faye stayed too long in Cancun or Cozumel and he just phoned this one in. My advice? Nahhhhhh. all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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