A Cold Heart (Alex Delaware Series #17)

by Jonathan Kellerman, John Rubinstein (Narrated by)

Overview

A master at creating psychologically nuanced novels of suspense, Jonathan Kellerman is an author whose name is synonymous with unrelenting action, intriguing plot twists, and penetrating insight into the criminal mind. Now with his new novel, Kellerman ups the ante. Featuring his brilliant signature style, this tour-de-force mines even deeper the emotional landscape of his characters: psychologist-sleuth Alex Delaware, LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis, Milo's colleague Petra Connor, and Alex's ex-lover Robin Castagna -- bringing them all vividly to life as never before. In A COLD HEART, Delaware must discover the elusive ties among the murders of a painter, a blues musician, a ballet dancer, a punk rock singer, and a concert pianist -- and uncover a madman who's making cold-blooded murder his chosen art form.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739303092
Publisher:	Books on Tape, Inc.
Publication date:	11/27/2007
Series:	Alex Delaware Series
Edition description:	Unabridged

About the Author

Jonathan Kellerman is one of the world's most popular authors. He has brought his expertise as a clinical psychologist to numerous bestselling tales of suspense (which have been translated into two dozen languages), including seventeen Alex Delaware novels; The Butcher's Theater, a story of serial killing in Jerusalem; and Billy Straight, featuring Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor. He is also the author of numerous essays, short stories, and scientific articles, two children's books, and three volumes of psychology, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. He and his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, have four children.

Jonathan Kellerman is one of the world's most popular authors. He has brought his expertise as a clinical psychologist to numerous bestselling tales of suspense (which have been translated into two dozen languages), including seventeen Alex Delaware novels; The Butcher's Theater, a story of serial killing in Jerusalem; and Billy Straight, featuring Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor. He is also the author of numerous essays, short stories, and scientific articles, two children's books, and three volumes of psychology, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. He and his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, have four children.

Hometown:

Beverly Hills, California

Date of Birth:

August 9, 1949

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A. in psychology, University of California-Los Angeles; Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1974

Website:

http://www.jonathankellerman.com/

Read an Excerpt

The witness remembers it like this:

Shortly after 2 a.m., Baby Boy Lee exits the Snake Pit through the rear alley fire door. The light fixture above the door is set up for two bulbs, but one is missing, and the illumination that trickles down onto the garbage-flecked asphalt is feeble and oblique, casting a grimy mustard-colored disc, perhaps three feet in diameter. Whether or not the missing bulb is intentional will remain conjecture.

It is Baby Boy's second and final break of the evening. His contract with the club calls for a pair of one-hour sets. Lee and the band have run over their first set by twenty-two minutes, because of Baby Boy's extended guitar and harmonica solos. The audience, a nearly full house of 124, is thrilled. The Pit is a far cry from the venues Baby Boy played in his heyday, but he appears to be happy, too.

It has been a while since Baby Boy has taken the stage anywhere and played coherent blues. Audience members questioned later are unanimous: Never has the big man sounded better.

Baby Boy is said to have finally broken free of a host of addictions, but one habit remains: nicotine. He smokes three packs of Kools a day, taking deep-in-the-lung drags while onstage, and his guitars are notable for the black, lozenge-shaped burn marks that scar their lacquered wood finishes.

Tonight, though, Baby Boy has been uncommonly focused, rarely removing lit cigarettes from where he customarily jams them: just above the nut of his 62 Telecaster, wedged under the three highest strings, smoldering slowly.

So it is probably a tobacco itch that causes the singer to leap offstage the moment he plays his final note, flinging his bulk out the back door without a word to his band or anyone else. The bolt clicks behind him, but it is doubtful he notices.

The fiftieth Kool of the day is lit before Baby Boy reaches the alley. He is sucking in mentholated smoke as he steps in and out of the disc of dirty light.

The witness, such that he is, is certain that he caught a glimpse of Baby Boy's face in the light and that the big man was sweating. If that's true, perhaps the perspiration had nothing to do with anxiety but resulted from Baby Boy's obesity and the calories expended on his music: For 83 minutes he has been jumping and howling and swooning, caressing his guitar, bringing the crowd to a frenzy at set's end with a fiery, throat-ripping rendition of his signature song, a basic blues setup in the key of B-flat that witnesses the progression of Baby Boy's voice from inaudible mumble to an anguished wail.

There's women that'll mess you

There's those that treat you nice

But I got me a woman with

A heart as cold as ice.

A cold heart,

A cold, cold heart

My baby's hot but she is cold

A cold heart,

A cold, cold heart

My baby's murdering my soul . . .

At this point, the details are unreliable. The witness is a hepatitis-stricken, homeless man by the name of Linus Leopold Brophy, age thirty-nine but looking sixty, who has no interest in the blues or any other type of music and who happens to be in the alley because he has been drinking Red Phoenix fortified wine all night and the Dumpster five yards east of the Snake Pit's back door provides shelter for him to sleep off his delirium tremens. Later, Brophy will consent to a blood alcohol test and will come up .24, three times the legal limit for driving, but according to...

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Artfully done . . . [a] classic whodunit sprinkled with hard-boiled lines and more twists than a plate of fusilli. Kellerman has an unusual knack for making his heroes and their personal lives as detailed and engaging as the crime solving.”—People
 
“Kellerman really knows how to keep those pages turning.”—The New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

Analyze this about Dr. Alex Delaware: he's a guy who cleans the front grille of his Cadillac with a toothbrush before going out to meet a new woman. But there's something endearing about his actually admitting it. And fortunately for readers of a series that still ambles on confidently, he's smarter about murder than he is about love. — Janet Maslin

The New York Times

"This one's a twister, isn't it?" Kellerman is at it again with number 17 in his highly successful series starring smooth L.A. psychologist Alex Delaware. In this latest installment, Delaware is called in (via Homicide pal Milo Sturgis) to consult on a string of bizarre murders of fringe artists on the verge of stardom. The victims-a bluesman out of rehab, a punk diva screaming her way toward a record deal, a rising young concert pianist and an abstract painter-seem utterly unrelated. Their only connection, as Delaware shrewdly notes, is that each is "[a] gifted, damaged soul snuffed out violently, during the first blush of comeback." Rounding out the investigative team is Det. Petra Connor (reprising her role from previous Kellerman books), this time paired with spooky, skinny Eric Stahl, a silent ex-soldier with a sweaty fear of hospitals. The clues appear in an underground zine covering art in absurdly pretentious tones ("This is DANCE as in paleo-instinctuo-bioenergetics") in articles signed by the "Faithful Scrivener," and lead the team to encounters with some of the weirder denizens of the City of Angels. Of course, Kellerman provides a meaty layer of interpersonal relationships beneath the surface of his plot, so that longtime fans can tune into the latest episode of Delaware's tense friendship with his ex, Robin, which is not where he hoped it would be, but which he handles with his usual aplomb ("When in doubt, ask about the dog"). That Robin's occupation places her squarely in the killer's crosshairs wraps things up nicely. Booksellers should have little trouble moving this along. Agent, Barney Karpfinger. Major ad/promo. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Delaware and Sturgis find themselves involved in investigating a series of murders whose common denominator is that the victims are entertainers who were either on the verge of a career breakthrough or about to make a comeback. Again, there's an abundance of intriguing characters who are credibly brought to life in an endless array of plots and subplots. (20 Jun 2005)
—Steve Forbes

Forbes Magazine

The sleuthing shrink returns for a 17th session. This time out, psychotherapist Alex Delaware finds himself set against a serial killer who has serious issues with performers. The list of performers is generous, comprising a blues singer, a ballet dancer, a painter, a punk-rocker, a concert pianist, and a saxophone player. But where's the tie that binds? Of course, all of them, even the painter, succeed only when they satisfy their audiences, but Alex (The Murder Book, 2002, etc.) suspects a deeper, sicker bond. Accompanied by cast regulars Milo Sturgis and Petra Connor of LAPD homicide-with Petra's semi-mute new partner Eric Stahl as an added starter-Alex sets out to discover what the link among the late performers might be. Together they follow a corkscrew path to, then deep into, the twisted pathology of a ruthless killer who views murder as just a heightened kind of performance. Complicating Alex's sleuthing, however, is the manifest need for some self-investigation. Without his having planned or in any way prepared for this complication, the number of fetching ladies in his life has risen to two. It's a situation with a definite downside, since Alex finds to his dismay that if he can't be near the charmer he loves, he loves the charmer he's near. Detective fiction's best-loved shrink, handsome, intrepid, immeasurably sensitive, is in top form, even though the 400 pages of his latest case might have called for some shrinking themselves. Agent: Barney Karpfinger/Karpfinger Agency

Kirkus Reviews

Artfully done . . . [a] classic whodunit sprinkled with hard-boiled lines and more twists than a plate of fusilli. Kellerman has an unusual knack for making his heroes and their personal lives as detailed and engaging as the crime solving.”—People
 
“Kellerman really knows how to keep those pages turning.”—The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher