Gone (Alex Delaware, No. 20)
by Jonathan Kellerman
List Price:
Our Price: $0.01
You Save: $7.98 (100%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Jonathan KellermanEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-03-27
ISBN: 0345452623
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Gone (Alex Delaware, No. 20)
Book Review: Not his best, but still pretty good
Summary: 4 Stars
At this point, Jonathan Kellerman has set his standards high enough that anything less than a superb book tends to disappoint at least some people. This isn't his best book: the ending isn't that surprising, and in some ways it touches on themes that he's written on before, but it's still a good book, and worth reading.
The story starts with Alex Delaware called in as a consultant by a lawyer he knows from a previous case. In this instance, the lawyer's defending a young wannabe actress who waits tables and goes to acting school. In an attempt to get noticed at the acting school, she and a sort-of boyfriend concoct a fake kidnapping. It doesn't work, they get caught, and the lawyer wants Alex to give him some maneuver room when he gets to court by discovering something in her psychologically that would explain her actions, as opposed to her being stupid. Alex doesn't come up with much, she gets off pretty much anyway, and then two weeks later turns up stabbed to death. Alex's friend Milo Sturgis winds up investigating, and we're off to the races.
As I said above, Kellerman's written about some of the themes discussed here in the past. As Milo and Alex work their way through the mystery, it seems every character they run across has either been in the entertainment business in some fashion, or wants to be. And the rootless (and ruthless) nature of LA, the way it has so many people who don't seem to know anyone or belong anywhere, is a recurring theme of Kellerman's. As the book progresses, Milo and Alex discover another young woman who was trying to act, who waited tables in a restaurant, and who seemed to drop off the face of the earth one day. At least in part, this mirrors reality. At least in the Hollywood/Santa Monica/San Fernando Valley part of town, most waiters in most restaurants probably have a headshot somewhere nearby, just in case the next customer happens to be a producer or casting director with an opening.
While the plot doesn't move as fast as some of Kellerman's books have in the past, it does have the requisite local color that he's so good at. I think Musso and Frank's ought to give both Kellerman and Michael Connelly a permanent table for all the publicity the restaurant gets from their books (Yes, it's there...went there for my anniversary, good prime rib). He also gets the minor characters down so very well, especially three different Southern California women of a certain age, so to speak. There's a West Side professional (a dentist in this case) who spends half of her interview with Milo and Alex bitching about how she got non-fat milk in her soy latte, when she specifically asked for *whole* milk, an obviously Jewish interior designer who is wealthy and still prowls the outlet malls north of the city, and a real estate saleswoman from the Valley who has a background trying to sing in a band, and of course wants to convince Alex to move to her part of town, with her handing the sale. She also, of course, thinks about writing a book (or having one written) about how she knew a serial killer many years ago.
I don't know, maybe I am blind to his failings, but I think this was a decent entry into Kellerman's series of Delaware books. As I said, it's not the best, and there aren't any serious surprises, the way the author has sprung them in the past, but it's still a good book, and I would recommend it.
Summary of Gone (Alex Delaware, No. 20)
No one conducts a more chilling, suspenseful, thoroughly engrossing tour through the winding corridors of criminal behavior and the secret chambers of psychopathology than Jonathan Kellerman, the bestselling ?master of the psychological thriller? (People). Now the incomparable team of psychologist Alex Delaware and homicide cop Milo Sturgis embark on their most dangerous excursion yet, into the dark places where risk runs high and blood runs cold.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?
From the Hardcover edition.
Literary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Angelsby Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.24
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.78
Price in other shops:
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptationby Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Boonville: A Novelby Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Carameloby Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $4.60
Price in other shops:
Headhunterby Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The Whiteby Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Dr. Death (Alex Delaware, No. 14)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2008-05-20; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.84
Price in other shops:
Evidence: An Alex Delaware Novelby Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2010-02-23; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.75
Price in other shops:
The Murder Book (Alex Delaware, No. 16)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2008-05-20; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.04
Price in other shops:
A Cold Heart (Alex Delaware)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2003-12-30; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.99
Price in other shops:
Compulsion (Alex Delaware, No. 22)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2008-08-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.45
Price in other shops:
Bones (Alex Delaware, No. 23)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2009-02-24; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.98
Price in other shops:
Therapy (Alex Delaware)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2005-03-29; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.26
Price in other shops:
Obsession (Alex Delaware, No. 21)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2008-02-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.37
Price in other shops:
Rage (Alex Delaware, No. 19)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2006-02-28; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.54
Price in other shops:
Deception: An Alex Delaware Novel (Alex Delaware Novels)by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books; Published: 2011-02-22; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops: