True Detectives: A Novel
by Jonathan Kellerman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jonathan KellermanEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-24
ISBN: 0345495144
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of True Detectives: A Novel
Book Review: Very intertaining
Summary: 4 Stars
After writing a couple of non-fiction books, Jonathan Kellerman wrote thirty one mystery novels since 1985, all best sellers. Twenty three of them have the clear thinking psychologist Alex Delaware as its hero. Each novel is fast paced with clever dialogue, interesting descriptions of places and people and things, including clothing, and an in-depth psychological portrait of the people's foibles, good and bad.
Kellerman's characters are off beat, which makes them interesting and entertaining. One of his early mysteries concerns a Jewish cop in Jerusalem, Israel, who was a Yemenite. His Delaware novels include a police detective that is gay and overweight. Kellerman's main characters do not use Sherlock Holmesian methods of analyzing objects such as cigarette ashes, but surf the internet to discover truths.
The heroes in True Detectives are two brothers, one white and one black, the sons of the same mother, but different fathers, both of whom were police officers, partners and close friends. The two brothers served as police detectives. One remained on the force, but the other left to become a private detective. Both are very zealous in their work and very competent. But, unlike their fathers who liked each other, they suffer from sibling rivalry. This rivalry adds salt and pepper to the tale.
Kellerman names the two Moses and Aaron, which may remind the reader of the famous biblical siblings Moses the law giver and Aaron the priest, who were not rivals. In fact Aaron the elder of the two never complained that his younger brother took the leadership role over the Israelites and gave him a secondary position as priest. Moses, according to the Bible had a black wife. Kellerman's brothers are the opposite: Moses is white and the elder of the two. Aaron is black.
Moses the police officer was involved in a disappearance case for over a year and is agitated that he is unable to solve the case and recover the woman. Then, by chance, his brother Aaron is hired to find her. The two brothers, unable to get along, work separately to search for the missing woman. They discover murders and other crimes and a wide assortment of interesting and unusual characters.
Kellerman has an interesting writing style. He is unlike the traditional mystery writers who spice their tale with clues, offering their readers an opportunity to solve the whodunit before the author reveals the truth. These writers add "red herrings," or false clues, to mislead the readers, a practice that does not bother the readers, but adds to the game.
Kellerman has red herrings but does not use them as false clues. He uses the red herrings to create twists and turns in the novels. In True Detectives, the bothers, working from different angles, move from one fact to another, first one person seems to be the prime suspect, but soon another takes this person's place. But the conclusion of the story, although consistent with all that precedes it, does not flow from what previously occurred. Kellerman could have placed any one of a hundred different interesting endings. This is another typical Kellerman method.
To be more specific, without revealing the story and its several plots, one of the brothers puts pressure on one of the characters, a person known at the outset of the tale, and this person reveals what the two were trying to find out from page one. The brother learns what he learns from the physical pressure, not from any clues.
But this style should not lead readers to think that Kellerman is not a good writer and that his mysteries in general and this novel in particular are deficient. Quite the contrary. His tales are generally filled with attention holding unusual developments and each of the many people that is introduced is sketched so that Kellerman ends by offering us a marvelous story with a treasure of small psychological vignettes.
Summary of True Detectives: A Novel
In Jonathan Kellerman?s gripping novels, the city of Los Angeles is as much a living, breathing character as the heroes and villains who roam its labyrinthine streets. Sunny on the surface but shadowy beneath, this world of privilege and pleasure has a dark core and a dangerous edge. In True Detectives, Kellerman skillfully brings his renowned gifts for breathless suspense and sharp psychological insight to a tale that resonates on every level and satisfies at every turn.Bound by blood but divided by troubles as old as Cain and Abel, Moses Reed and Aaron Fox were first introduced in Kellerman?s bestselling Bones. They are sons of the same strong-willed mother, and their respective fathers were cops, partners, and friends. Their turbulent family history has set them at odds, despite their shared calling. Moses?part Boy Scout, part bulldog, man of few words?is a no-frills LAPD detective. Aaron, sharp dresser and smooth operator, is an ex-cop turned high-end private eye. Usually they go their separate ways. But the disappearance of Caitlin Frostig isn?t usual. For Moses, it?s an ice-cold mystery he just can?t outrun, even with the help of psychologist Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis. For Aaron, it?s a billable-hours bonanza from his most lucrative client. Like it or not, Moses and Aaron are in this one together?and the rivalry that rules them won?t let either man quit till the case is cracked.
A straight-arrow, straight-A student from Malibu, Caitlin has only two men in her life: her sullen single father and her wholesome college sweetheart, who even the battling brothers agree seems too downright upright to be true. Reluctantly tag-teaming in a desperate search for fresh leads, Moses and Aaron zero in on Caitlin?s white knight as their primary ?person of interest,? hoping that, like most people in L.A., he has a secret side.
But they uncover more than just a secret as they descend into the sinister, seamy side of the City of Angels after dark, populated by a Hollywood Babylon cast of the glamorous and the damned: a millionaire movie director turned hatemongering eccentric; a desperate Beverly Hills housewife looking for an exit from the fast lane; a heartthrob actor being eaten alive by personal demons; a hooker who?s probably seen it all . . . and might just know too much. And at the center, a dead young woman whose downward spiral and brutal end loom over Moses and Aaron like an omen of what may come to be if the dark end of the street claims another lost soul.
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