Review: MOTIVE by Jonathan Kellerman

Publisher: Headline
Rating: 4*
   

Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis are back in Motive, Jonathan Kellerman's latest in the Delaware series.

This new story opens with Milo stymied over a murder investigation that's run straight into a wall.
While commiserating with Delaware over the unsolved death a woman is found shot to death in a parking lot.  The pair check out the scene of the puzzling death but clues are in short supply.  Sturgis and Delaware investigate, pursuing their mutual suspicions but the new case also goes cold, frustrating the pair.

Ready to move on despite their frustration, a weird piece of evidence surfaces in the second corpse's home, seeming to link the two cold cases.  As they pursue leads the dead bodies continue to pile up and the connections between the stiff's leads the pair of investigators to pursue a serial killer.   They focus on a couple of suspects with Delaware making logical, psychopathic explanations that make a case against each suspect.  When one of their main suspects ends up dead, Delaware and Sturgis figure out who the serial killer was and how he was related to the others.

Motive is set mainly in Los Angeles proper and the setting is sometimes brought to life, such as the hills of LA and weird CD store but but other times it is just a backdrop. The clever plot unfolds as strings of evidence pointing each suspect are made, broken, re-weaved and strengthened, leaving the reader to bounce from target to target for the perpetrator. As readers of the Delaware series are aware, Kellerman reinforces a reader's guessing game with the banter between Alex and Milo. Its moves the story along and misdirects the reader with their plausible rationalizations of scenarios.

Kellerman really knows how to develop a line of questions to probe into a crime and his dialogue is simply stellar in Motive.   I liked the way Kellerman uses his skilful character development to demonizing a suspect for a period and then yanks them back to being sympathetic.  Deeper descriptions of persons and places ensure that Kellerman's stories are character driven and are able drag the reader into the setting and its world; not merely a plot driven shallow shell.  As any writer who has taken a first course in writing or has ever had an editor knows, visceral detail is what distinguishes a real writer from the slush pile.  I did enjoy the read; it was fast paced and entertaining.

Bookstore Links: Amazon.com  |  Amazon.co.uk  |  B&N  |  Waterstones  |  WH Smith

Reviewed for MCT by Dan Petrosini.

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Review: Trust No One by Paul Cleave

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Rating: 4*

Jerry Grey is a bestselling crime author. Writing under a pseudonym of Henry Cutter, his twelve novels have thrilled readers and granted a comfortable life to him and his family. Jerry is hard at work on his thirteenth book when he forgets his wife's name at a party. This seems like a simple slip of the mind, but soon he becomes more and more forgetful. Finally, he agrees to see a doctor who gives Jerry an unexpectedly grim diagnosis. At the young age of forty-nine, Jerry Grey has the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

Fast forward a year and Jerry's descent into dementia has reached a dismal low. His wife Sandra has left him. His daughter rarely visits him and refuses to call him Dad. Abandoned by his family and barely able to remember his past, Jerry finds himself in the care of a nursing home. As his malady continues to ravage his mind, Jerry begins to confuse his own actions with those of the characters he used to write about. He used the Henry Cutter pseudonym as a way to separate the horrors he wrote about from the joys of his family life, but now the two are indistinguishable. Most days find Jerry confused and confessing to murders that took place in his novel.

Jerry has a habit of wandering from the facility in the night. When he is found, he is disoriented and has no recollection of how he escaped or what he did during the time he was gone. The situation becomes more dire when the police show up at Jerry's nursing home. It is no secret that Jerry has confessed to crimes from his novels, but now he has confessed to the murder of a girl who actually existed. Worse, her murder occurred on a night when Jerry escaped. Jerry is certain that he is not a killer, but he has no memory of the events of that night. With no alibi and a group of police seeking any closure to the case, Jerry struggles to defend his innocence and maintain his grasp on reality.

The novel switches back and forth between the past and present. The past is told through Jerry's "Madness Journal" that he started keeping at the start of his diagnosis. He knew that his memory would begin to fail, so he wrote the journal to inform his future self of his life. These journal entries alternate with the story of present day Jerry and his ongoing mental decline. As the novel progresses, The past and present begin to come together and culminate in a electrifying conclusion. The mystery ends up being conventional to the crime genre, but the spin of an unreliable protagonist helps to keep the plot moving and the suspense tightly wound. Trust No One is an adequately dark thriller that skilfully breathes new life into the genre while adhering to the style that readers have come to expect.

Bookstore Links: Amazon.com  |  Amazon.co.uk  |  B&N  |  Waterstones 

Reviewed for MCT by Ethan S.

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Review: A Line of Blood by Ben McPherson

Publisher: HarperCollins
Rating: 4*

In “A Line of Blood” we meet a small family living in North London.  Some would call them yuppies.  Alex Mercer, a Scot, is a television producer.  His wife Millicent, an ex-pat American, writes self-help books.  They try their best to live their life and provide good parenting for their son who is an intelligent and precocious eleven year-old named Max.

Alex and Millicent did not have a ‘usual’ beginning, but rather almost a marriage of convenience.   After a ‘hook-up’ and instant physical attraction, Millicent – a California girl – stays in London to be with Alex.  Because she is from the States, the only way she can legally stay and work in England is to marry.   After fifteen years of marriage Alex has never met Millicent’s parents.   They had muddled along nicely until they lose a baby, a girl, named Sarah.  Both grieve, but Millicent has a breakdown of sorts – and their son Max is so traumatized that his and his mother’s relationship is forever changed.  In fact the entire family dynamic is forever changed.

When Alex follows his son into the next-door neighbor’s yard in chase of their cat, what they discover will change and scar them even further.    They find their neighbor dead in the bath.  Fearful for the mental trauma that seeing a dead body might have on his son, Alex thinks that is the worst that can happen… but that is only the tip of the iceberg.  The police find a bracelet that belongs to Millicent in the neighbor’s house – beneath the bed…   The police request that Alex “help them with their inquiries”.  Betrayals, arrests, psychological counseling, adultery, suspicion, and domestic violence are all results of their discovery.  Life will never be the same for the family Alex calls his ‘little tribe’.

How the neighbor came to meet his demise drives the story and the reader is compelled to discover the who, the why, and the how it will change lives.   “The line of blood” differs from most other psychological thrillers in that the narrative is told solely from the male point of view via the character of Alex.  All the characters depicted in the novel were fully-fleshed out and very believable.  Written with an empathetic voice and an understanding of human nature, this is a debut novel that packs a punch.  It is equally disturbing and compelling. I would highly recommend it to all lovers of mystery and suspense.

I always wonder about the author’s reasons for choosing a specific title.  In this case I can only assume that he is referring to the protagonist’s family ‘line’ and how violent death seems to visit each generation.

Ben McPherson was born in Glasgow and grew up in Edinburgh, but left Scotland when he was eighteen. He studied languages at Cambridge, then worked for many years in film and television in London.  In 1998, after working a forty-eight-hour shift, he went for a drink at the Coach and Horses in Soho and met the woman he would go on to marry. Similarities to the characters in A Line of Blood end there.  Ben now lives in Oslo with his wife and their two sons. He is a columnist for Aftenposten, Norway’s leading quality daily newspaper.

Bookstore Links: Amazon.com  |  Amazon.co.uk  |  B&N  |  Waterstones  |  WH Smith

Reviewed for MCT by Lynne L.

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Review: I'll Never Let You Go by Mary Burton

Publisher: Kensington Books
Rating: 4.5*

Love hurts, and sometimes it kills.

He promised to kill her. One night four years ago, Leah Carson's husband almost succeeded. Philip stabbed her twenty-three times before fleeing. The police are sure he's dead. But fear won't let Leah believe it.

It starts with little things. Missing keys. A flat tire. Mysterious flowers. All easily explained away if the pattern wasn't so terrifyingly familiar. Leah has a new veterinary practice and a new life with no ties to her nightmare. But Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent Alex Morgan suspects something. And when another woman's body is found, stabbed twenty-three times, Leah knows her past has found her. As Leah and Alex untangle the horrifying truth, he watches her, ready for the perfect moment. Until death—that was the vow they made. And a killer always keeps his word…

A fantastic read. I won't be happy now until I've read every single book in Mary Burton's backlist!

Dark and thrilling, I'll Never Let You Go had me awake until late into the wee hours, not being able to let it go until I reached the end. 

It is atmospheric and full of suspense. The author pulls no punches with killing off her characters and there is a real sense of danger and terror enveloping the story. I loved that the romantic side of the plot, although evident, was placed firmly in the sidelines to allow the suspense and the drama to take centre stage. 

From the opening chapter, I developed a liking for and attachment to Leah who had to suffer and survive domestic abuse, stalking as well as having to make a slow trek back from death's door after a horrifying attempt on her life. I inwardly cheered for her as she got her life back together and made new friends. I liked Alex as well despite his emotional detachment from people. His professionalism and genuine concern for Leah won me over fairly quickly.

The mystery and suspense unfolded with many twists and turns. I thought very early into the novel that I had a good idea of how the story would go, but I was wrong! I was not expecting the twists that occurred and I was genuinely as surprised as the characters were themselves at the turn of events towards the end of the novel.

Bookstore Links:  Amazon.com  |  Amazon.co.uk  |  B&N  |  Waterstones  |  WH Smith

Reviewed for MCT by Cailin.

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