The first graphic novel adaptation from master of psychological suspense Jonathan Kellerman brings a stunning new visual edge to the classic New York Times bestseller Silent Partner—a “harrowing tale of murder and manipulation” (The Plain Dealer) that “hits the reader right between the eyes” (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

Alex Delaware [...]]]>

The first graphic novel adaptation from master of psychological suspense Jonathan Kellerman brings a stunning new visual edge to the classic New York Times bestseller Silent Partner—a “harrowing tale of murder and manipulation” (The Plain Dealer) that “hits the reader right between the eyes” (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

Alex Delaware is struggling to keep his relationship with girlfriend Robin Castagna alive when a beautiful face from the past suddenly steps back into his life. Sharon Ransom was Alex’s lover back in the day—until her mind games and increasingly erratic behavior drove them apart. Now Sharon tries to rekindle old feelings and seek his help with some new troubles. Alex turns her away—a decision he bitterly regrets when Sharon ends up dead the next day.

The official ruling is suicide, but for Alex the case won’t be closed until he finds out what happened. Driven by guilt and grief, he plunges deep into the territory he knows best—where dark secrets, dangerous fears, and twisted needs prey on hearts and minds. With the aid of his trusted friend, homicide cop Milo Sturgis, Alex traces Sharon’s fatal path through a world of Hollywood high life riddled with scandal, corruption, and blood—where innocence and lives are easily lost.

Scripted by Ande Parks, author of the acclaimed graphic novels Union Station and Capote in Kansas, and illustrated by Marvel and DC comics veteran Michael Gaydos, Silent Partner captures Jonathan Kellerman’s trademark blend of crime drama and psychodrama with noirish style and eye-catching, page-turning intensity.

Pre-Order in the U.S.

Unraveling the madness behind L.A.’s most baffling and brutal homicides is what sleuthing psychologist Alex Delaware does best.

And putting the good doctor through his thrilling paces is what mystery fiction’s #1 bestselling master of psychological suspense Jonathan Kellerman [...]]]> Coming February 28th, 2012.

Pre-Order in the U.S.

Unraveling the madness behind L.A.’s most baffling and brutal homicides is what sleuthing psychologist Alex Delaware does best.

And putting the good doctor through his thrilling paces is what mystery fiction’s #1 bestselling master of psychological suspense Jonathan Kellerman does with incomparable brilliance. Kellerman’s universally acclaimed novels blend the addictive rhythms of the classic police procedural with chilling glimpses into the darkest depths of the human condition. For the compelling proof, look no further than Victims—Kellerman at his razor-sharp, harrowing finest.

Not since Jack the Ripper terrorized the London slums has there been such a gruesome crime scene. By all accounts, acid-tongued Vita Berlin hadn’t a friend in the world, but whom did she cross so badly as to end up arranged in such a grotesque tableau? One look at her apartment–turned–charnel house prompts hard-bitten LAPD detective Milo Sturgis to summon his go-to expert in hunting homicidal maniacs, Alex Delaware. But despite his finely honed skills, even Alex is stymied when more slayings occur in the same ghastly fashion . . . yet with no apparent connection among the victims. And the only clue left behind—a blank page bearing a question mark—seems to be both a menacing taunt and a cry for help from a killer baffled by his own lethal urges.

Under pressure to end the bloody spree and prevent a citywide panic, Milo redoubles his efforts to discover a link between the disparate victims. Meanwhile, Alex navigates the secretive world of mental health treatment, from the sleek office of a Beverly Hills therapist to a shuttered mental institution where he once honed his craft—and where an unholy alliance between the mad and the monstrous may have been sealed in blood. As each jagged piece of the puzzle fits into place, an ever more horrific portrait emerges of a sinister mind at its most unimaginable—and an evil soul at its most unspeakable. “This one was different,” Alex observes at the start of the case. This one will haunt his waking life, and his darkest dreams, long after its end.

The latest Alex Delaware novel  hit shelves in hardcover on March 29th 2011 (US)  from Ballantine Books.

Few know the city of Los Angeles the way #1 bestselling author and acclaimed suspense master Jonathan Kellerman does. His thrilling novels of psychological drama and criminal detection [...]]]>  Buy Now

The latest Alex Delaware novel  hit shelves in hardcover on March 29th 2011 (US)  from Ballantine Books.

Few know the city of Los Angeles the way #1 bestselling author and acclaimed suspense master Jonathan Kellerman does. His thrilling novels of psychological drama and criminal detection make the capital of dreams a living, breathing character in all its glamour and infamy. That storied history of fame, seduction, scandal, and murder looms large in Mystery, as Alex Delaware finds himself drawn into a twisting, shadowy whodunit that’s pure L.A. noir—and vintage Kellerman.

The closing of their favorite romantic rendezvous, the Fauborg Hotel in Beverly Hills, is a sad occasion for longtime patrons Alex Delaware and Robin Castagna. And gathering one last time with their fellow faithful habitués for cocktails in the gracious old venue makes for a bittersweet evening. But even more poignant is a striking young woman—alone and enigmatic among the revelers—waiting in vain in elegant attire and dark glasses that do nothing to conceal her melancholy. Alex can’t help wondering what her story is, and whether she’s connected to the silent, black-suited bodyguard lingering outside the hotel.

Two days later, Alex has even more to contemplate when police detective Milo Sturgis comes seeking his psychologist comrade’s insights about a grisly homicide. To Alex’s shock, the brutalized victim is the same beautiful woman whose lonely hours sipping champagne at the Fauborg may have been her last.

But with a mutilated body and no DNA match, she remains as mysterious in death as she seemed in life. And even when a tipster’s sordid revelation finally cracks the case open, the dark secrets that spill out could make Alex and Milo’s best efforts to close this horrific crime not just impossible but fatal.

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times. View the original article on the L.A. Times website.
 

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times. View the original article on the L.A. Times website.
 

Jonathan Kellerman, a shrink-wrapped success

The onetime psychologist brought elements of his training and his interest in the ‘darker side’ to the page in creating his bestselling Alex Delaware novels.

 
Perverted plutocrats, a Hollywood madam with a narcissism problem, prostitutes with attitude, indulgent rich kids — Jonathan Kellerman’s latest novel has so many unpleasant characters it would be wearying to read if the plot didn’t move like a bullet train.

Kellerman himself is unapologetic. “I like to create twisted characters,” he says with a laugh. “It’s just what I do: I’m a psychologist. Ever since I’ve been a kid I’ve had a fascination with the darker side of things.”

The author, 61, is not a dark guy. Wearing faded jeans and a black mock-turtleneck, he’s sitting in a room that includes shelves of books, a painting canvas, a pool table and a view of his ample yard and swimming pool. The life he’s made for himself from Southern California’s sun-kissed brand of malevolence includes more than 40 million books in print in the U.S. alone and three other published novelists in the family. All that, as well as the vintage guitars he’s collected over the years, clearly makes him happy.

For a man with a gate around his property — what appears to be a brick Southern mansion dropped down into Beverly Hills — Kellerman has a very open manner. “There are cynics who say that all relationships are basically a purchase of some kind,” he says. “I’m kind of a romantic, so I don’t want to think that.”

Whether he thinks it or not, the theme of prostitution — borderline or full-on, high-tech and high-end or low-down and old-fashioned — runs through his new novel, which Ballantine publishes this week. “Mystery” is the 26th of his Alex Delaware novels, in which a child psychologist teams up with beefy, sharp-witted LAPD Lt. Milo Sturgis to solve cases that would otherwise baffle the department.

Besides allowing him to create a wish-fulfillment version of himself, the Delaware character allows Kellerman to draw from his psychological training — his doctorate in clinical psychology and his years working as a pediatric psychologist and therapist for children.

The novel begins with the demolition of a cozy old hotel on Crescent Drive whose bar has attracted an enigmatic, overdressed young woman who is found dead shortly after.

While the book roams to the Inland Empire and the wilds of the west San Fernando Valley, much of its action takes place in and around the Internet. “I’m fascinated with the way technology always outstrips everything,” Kellerman says, “especially morality. And, of course, the novelist in me thinks, ‘What if it goes really wrong?’”

A gnawing

Kellerman was born in New York City during a period in which his parents — an electrical engineer and homemaker — were borderline homeless. After living in what he describes as tenements on the Lower East Side and in the Bronx, his family bought a small house in Queens, only to have it condemned for an expressway. So in 1959, in part because of the Southland’s burgeoning aerospace industry, his father took the family to Los Angeles.

Enrolling at UCLA at 16, Kellerman found himself swept into a fascination with child psychology and pediatrics. Three years after graduating, he picked up a masters and a USC doctorate in clinical psychology. He worked various jobs at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and got a charge out of helping children with cancer. He’d also gotten married young and begun to have kids of his own. But he’d always wanted to write, and he spent evenings typing various structure-deprived novels.

“I had a really good job as a psychologist. I was basically a happy guy, except for this gnawing within me that I wasn’t getting published.” As the rejection slips began to pile up over about a dozen years, “I started to think, ‘Am I psychotic?’”

His breakthrough came unexpectedly. He was heading to the hospital one morning and saw an antiques shop on Sunset with a going-out-of-business sale. He picked up a Ross Macdonald novel, “The Underground Man,” which cost him a dime. Reading it later, something clicked. “I said, ‘This guy is a psychologist!’ ” Kellerman picked up the influence of Freud on these private-eye novels. “I thought, ‘I’m a psychologist: Maybe if I’m good enough, I can bring something special.’”

Macdonald’s Lew Archer novels — and Joseph Wambaugh’s police procedurals — offered an orientation for Kellerman.

Even after he shifted to writing crime novels, it wasn’t clear he’d succeed. His first book, “When the Bough Breaks,” which touched on child sexual abuse and introduced Delaware and Sturgis, took two years to sell and two more years to be published. “The advance was so small. I got three bucks an hour for it.”

And while the book’s publication justified the 13 years he’d struggled to get it into print, Kellerman figured writing would remain a hobby. But then came another novel, and another, all bestsellers. After he’d written five novels, Kellerman was able to quit full-time practice.

Steady work ethic

Like some of the other trademark bestselling author “brands,” Kellerman is remarkably consistent: Typically, at least one novel appears in the first few months of the year. Some years see more than one. The author doesn’t see it as especially difficult.

“A book is about 400 pages of manuscript,” he says flatly. “I write about five pages a day, so after 80 days you have a book,” which then can be polished and edited. It also allows him to work a little ahead: He’s recently turned in another Alex Delaware novel — “the darkest book I’ve ever written, it plunges into the depths of madness” — to be published March 2012.

Kellerman’s work ethic runs in the family, and it’s partly responsible for the clan of writers he now belongs to. His wife, Faye, writes bestselling mysteries, most of them featuring the husband-and-wife duo of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus, some of which explore Jewish themes.

Their eldest and youngest children are also published writers: Jesse, 32, is an award-winning playwright and the author of four novels, and Aliza, a college student of 18, co-wrote the 2009 young-adult novel “Prism” with her mother. (The Kellermans’ other two children work in clinical psychology.)

Faye Kellerman says it was her husband’s decade of literary struggle that inspired her, not his success. Like him, she’d wanted to write novels but put it aside as she studied dentistry and raised children.

“If he’d been successful right away, I wouldn’t have dared try,” she says. “It was the fact that he was persisting in the face of adversity. It was seeing that there was no shame in failing.”

She wrote several novels she didn’t show anyone and then, after putting a coming-of-age novel into the drawer, showed Jonathan a mystery called “The Ritual Bath,” telling him he wouldn’t like it. The book was published in 1986, and most her novels since then have been bestsellers.

“My parents aren’t over-intellectual author stereotypes,” Aliza Kellerman says. “They’re two of the most down-to-earth, friendly people you’ll ever meet. I think that’s why their success never intimidated me. Rather, it filled me with the idea that you can do what you love, make a living off of it and still be the type of person other people want to grab a cup of coffee with.”