Bought at the Grover Beach Community Library sale this morning.

A good one! This thick opus follows both psychologist Alex Delaware and police detective Milo Sturgis as they hunt for a solution for a 20-year-old murder. The case had been Milo's when he was a rookie, but he was transferred to a new post before he could solve it. Circumstances surrounding that transfer made it suspicious and suggested some kind of coverup of the crime.

Twenty years later Alex receives a book in the mail, sent anonymously, and the book sends the two of them hunting down the principal players and sniffing out clues in old newspaper files. The efforts put both in danger, increasingly so as time goes by. The plot is complex and full of twists and occasional lucky breaks. At the end, not everything is wrapped neatly, something like real life.

Meanwhile, Alex's bedmate Robin heads off on a band tour, repairing and preparing instruments. Alex is surly about the trip, irritable and accusing when he talks to her. He loves her but he's afraid of losing her and she loves him but is afraid for him. Robin has long been concerned about Alex's love affair with risk taking, as evidenced by his whole-hog immersion in investigations that can cause him harm.

In some Alex Delaware novels I have found him to be remarkably grounded and compassionate. I was disturbed by the childishness of his response to Robin's trip and his constant harping at her while she was gone. I am no psychologist but I would have handled this better with someone I loved. Too, we see Alex being drawn to somebody new. He does not act on the attraction but he lets it happen and I had to wonder if it was a way to walk away from the work he needs to do with Robin. There is, to me, a mix of the mature and immature in Alex, and sometimes the immature is given too much play.

As for Milo, we get more background and current character on him than I have read before (not that I have read them all). I found some similarities in his character with the Harry Bosch character by Michael Connelly, although he doesn't have as much "edge". I appreciated the additional insight.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Added to Erishkigal's mystery twistery book box!!

I haven't yet read any Kellerman, and this sounds good, so I look forward to it :D

warning~ given the number of tbrs , it will be awhile before I get a round tuit

After about 80 pages, I almost put this one down, decided to give it just a little more...maybe to 100....and then I read all day Sunday, I couldn't put it down. It was the amount of graphic violence that made me want to stop reading (the thought of another 400 pages of it), but fortunately it tapered off to the occasional disgusting sexist bit by one of the creeps. And as I haven't read this author before and knew nothing of the characters, Alex's double standards/sexism re Robin were particularly annoying since as a psychologist, one expects better of him. Once into it I enjoyed the solving of the very complicated and convoluted mystery, and also the relationship between Alex and Milo. Thanks for sharing!

into booklady 331's ABC Bookbox ~~enjoy!

This book enjoyed a brief visit in San Jose, California, before continuing its travels in the ABC (Already Book Crossed) Bookbox!

I am taking this out of the ABC Bookbox.

Another Alex Delaware/Milo Sturgis mystery. It was decently written although the ending seemed to drag on and was kind of cringy and unrealistic at some points.
We go back in time to when Milo was a new detective with a difficult, uncommunicative partner when they caught a gruesome case of a murdered young woman. But before any progress can be made Milo is transferred. Come into present time and someone mails Alex a book of gruesome murder photos including one of the victim from that case from early in Milo's career. Alex shows the book to Milo and off they go on trying to solve this cold case.

Released it at some point but I don't remember when or where