Evidence

The twenty-fourth Alex Delaware thriller (the series debuted in 1985, with When the Bough Breaks) is a tightly plotted story of murder and conspiracy. This is familiar ground for the mystery genre, familiar, too, for Kellerman, but over the years, he has proven himself adept at working interesting variations on familiar themes. As usual, the characters take center stage: Delaware, the crime-solving psychologist, and Milo Sturgis, the L.A. homicide detective. The story begins with the discovery of a murdered man and woman, their bodies evidently posed to simulate an intimate act. Following the trail of evidence (the Delaware novels generally stick to the police-procedural format), Delaware and Sturgis gradually realize this was no simple homicide. But as interesting as the story is, it's the two leads, who are like old friends to us by now, who capture our interest: two men who figure they must have seen it all and who are shocked, frightened, and saddened by the depravity they encounter now. Although the Delaware novels have appeared roughly one a year since 1985, they have never felt rushed or lost their punch. Kellerman knows his characters and their world so well that he always finds new things to say about them. And we keep happily reading.--Pitt, David Copyright 2009 Booklist

L.A. police lieutenant Milo Sturgis investigates a double homicide at the site of an unfinished, obscenely large mansion in bestseller Kellerman's nerve-tingling 24th Alex Delaware novel (after Bones). Construction halted on the house two years earlier, and ownership can be traced only to a defunct holding company in Washington, D.C. The male victim is easily identified-Desmond Backer, who worked for an odd little architectural firm-but the female victim's identity isn't immediately apparent. Alex serves as a sounding board while Milo pursues assorted rumors and false leads: the site owners are Arabs, Asians, Muslims; the killings were vengeance; the victims were eco-terrorists; the deaths are linked to the disappearance of a Swedish or Swiss woman years before. Without magic, just steady, inspired police work, including horse-trading with the FBI and skillful interrogations, Milo uncovers the unsavory truth. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Chapter One I tell the truth. They lie. I'm strong. They're weak. I'm good. They're bad. This was a zero job but Doyle was getting paid. Why anyone would shell out fifteen bucks an hour, three hours a day, five times a week, to check out the empty shell of a rich-idiot monster-house was something he'd never get. The look-see took fifteen minutes. If he walked slow. Rest of the time, Doyle sat around, ate his lunch, listened to Cheap Trick on his Walkman. Thinking about being a real cop if his knee hadn't screwed up. The company said go there, he went. Disability all run out, he swallowed part-time, no benefits. Paying to launder his own uniform. One time he heard a couple of the other guys talking behind his back. Gimp's lucky to get anything. Like it was his fault. His blood level had been .05, which wasn't even close to illegal. That tree had jumped out of nowhere. Gimp made Doyle go all hot in the face and the chest but he kept his mouth shut like he always did. One day . . . He parked the Taurus on the patch of dirt just outside the chainlink, tucked his shirt tighter. Seven a.m., quiet except for the stupid crows squawking. Rich-idiot neighborhood but the sky was a crappy milky gray just like in Burbank where Doyle's apartment was. Nothing moving on Borodi Lane. As usual. The few times Doyle saw anyone it was maids and gardeners. Rich idiots paying to live here but never living here, one monster-mansion after another, blocked by big trees and high gates. No sidewalks, either. What was that all about? Every once in a while, some tucked-tight blonde in Rodeo Drive sweats would come jogging down the middle of the road looking miserable. Never before ten, that type slept late, had breakfast in bed, massages, whatever. Laying around in satin sheets, getting waited on by maids and butlers before building up the energy to shake those skinny butts and long legs. Bouncing along in the middle of the road, some Rolls-Royce comes speeding down and kaboom. Wouldn't that be something? Doyle collected his camouflage-patterned lunch box from the trunk, made his way toward the three-story plywood shell. The third being that idiot castle thing-the turret. Unfinished skeleton of a house that would've been as big as a . . . as a . . . Disneyland castle. Fantasyland. Doyle had done some pacing, figured twenty thousand square feet, minimum. Two-acre lot, maybe two and a half. Framed up and skinned with plywood, for some reason, he could never find out why, everything stopped and now the heap was all gray, warping, striped with rusty nail-drips. Crappy gray sky leaking in through rotting rafters. On hot days, Doyle tucked himself into a corner for shade. Out behind in the bulldozed brown dirt was an old Andy Gump accidentally left behind, chemicals still in the john. The door didn't close good and sometimes Doyle found coyote scat inside, sometimes mouse droppings. When he felt like it, he just whizzed into the dirt. Someone paying all that money to build Fantasyland, then just stopping. Go figure. He'd brought a good lunch today, roast beef sandwich from Arby's, too bad there was nothing to heat the gravy with. Opening the box, he sniffed. Not bad. He moved toward the chain-link swing gate . . . what the- Stupid thing was pulled as wide as the chain allowed, which was about two, two and a half feet. Easy for anyone but a fat idiot to squeeze through. The chain had always been too long to really draw the gate tight, making the lock useless, but Doyle was careful to twist it up, make it look secure when he left each day. Some idiot had monkeyed with it. He'd told the company about the chain, got ignored. What was the point of hiring a professional when you didn't listen to his advice? Sidling through the gap, he Excerpted from Evidence by Jonathan Kellerman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.