The Clinic

Former child psychologist Jonathan Kellerman brings us the 11th installment in the reliable series featuring child psychologist Alex Delaware. Here Delaware teams up again with his old friend Detective Milo Sturgis of the LAPD to investigate the brutal murder of Dr. Hope Devane. Her bestselling book about how men victimize women made her famous; did it also lead to her death? As Sturgis and Delaware begin probing into the details of her life, they find more and more secrets and slowly close in on a killer filled with hate. As usual, Kellerman combines convincing psychological portraits with good dialogue and a plot that coils to a tense finish. From Publishers Weekly Kellerman is at his page-turning best in his latest Alex Delaware adventure (after The Web), an investigation into the savage stabbing murder of Hope Devane, a psychology professor and celebrity author. The LAPD, unable to solve the case after three months, reassigns it to Lieutenant Milo Sturgis. Milo calls on his friend Alex, a compassionate, astute psychologist, for insight into the victim, who had a seemingly routine academic career and marriage until writing a pop-psych relationship book. Delving beneath the veneer of Hope's life, Alex uncovers possible enemies: a man with whom she clashed on a TV talk show; students brought before her committee on sexual harassment; patients at a beleaguered women's health clinic where she volunteered. Further questions are raised about the victim's relationships with her doctoral supervisee Casey Locking; about the fertility specialist, from whom she received hefty consultation fees; about her sex life; about a shadowy link to an organized crime figure and the murder of a Las Vegas call girl. Each new avenue of investigation leads Alex and Milo to a dead end until they reach back into Hope Devane's childhood, which reveals links to the present that provide the shocking answer to the puzzle. Kellerman may not be a great stylist, but his serpentine plot and cast of mysterious characters grip the reader to the final page. Major ad/promo. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Who killed Hope Devane? And why? Was it her hostile spouse, a graduate student, or some random psychopath? Detective Milo Sturgis and his friend, psychologist Alex Delaware, must follow a cold trail to find her killer. Kellerman (Self-Defense, LJ 11/15/96) has crafted another masterly, darkly psychological tale, drawing upon timely issues ranging from abortion to organ harvesting. He weaves a frightening story, one that rings all too true in the reader's mind. Strongly recommended for all collections. -?Katherine Holmes, Eckerd College Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Kellerman is perhaps crime fiction's hottest author at the moment, so his latest is certain to draw a crowd. It begins with psychologist Hope Devane, a respected academic who wins fame and fortune with a radical-feminist, pop-psych book. But her promising career is cut short when she's brutally murdered outside her house. Three months later, there are no clues, no suspects, and no leads. The unsolved case winds up on the desk of LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, who figures the psychology angle could be an important one and quickly enlists the help of Dr. Alex Delaware, Kellerman's warm and cuddly hero. Probing both Devane's personal and professional life for clues, Delaware finds plenty of oddities, from the professor's ill-fated University Conduct Committee to the odd relationship she had with an unscrupulous fertility doctor to the mysterious past she tried so hard to hide. When one of Devane's students is killed, Alex figures he's getting close to the truth. This may be Kellerman's most riveting story yet, but even if it were his worst, libraries would still need to buy plenty! Emily Melton From Kirkus Reviews An academic whose bestselling, man-hating self-helper made her popular enough for somebody to murder provides another overwrought but gripping case for Dr. Alex Delaware (Over the Edge, 1987; The Web, 1996, not reviewed, etc.). Three months after most of the NYPD has given up on nailing Prof. Hope Devane's killer, Lt. Milo Sturgis wants his longtime friend and consultant Delaware to explain why the author of Wolves and Sheep was brutally stabbed to death. The problem, as Delaware soon finds, is that so many people hated Devane, ``the ultimate scholar-slash-good-mother,'' that they might as well have given out numbers at the murder scene. Her withdrawn, older husband was afraid of losing her; her fellow-guests on the talk- show circuit made good livings (surprisingly good) from sharpening their claws on her; the students her freelance university tribunal put on trial for sexual harassment (ranging from persistent requests for dates on up to date rape) would've loved to see her permanently assigned to a higher jurisdiction. And, as usual, when Delaware digs deeper, he finds much, much more, none of it very nice. Why was Devane earning fat consulting fees from big-shot lawyer Robert Barone and fertility specialist Dr. Milan Cruvic (whose own rx82sumx82 shows some suspicious gaps)? And how did her childhood (which old fans of Delaware will have seen looming as the touchstone long before Delaware gets around to rooting it up) steer her toward misanthropy, kinky sex, and even darker secrets? At the heart of it all are a conspiracy that'll confirm your worst urban-legend fears and a killer so clever that the deductions and the arrest only open a new chapter in Delaware's job. The red-herring neuroses Delaware keeps digging out of Hope Devane's past make this as pulpish as you'd expect from Kellerman. But his success in pulling everything together in the end makes the entry a standout in Delaware's bumpy series. (Book- of-the-Month Club main selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "Often, mystery writers can either plot like devils or create believable characters. Kellerman stands out because he can do both. Masterfully." -- USA Today A Main Selection of the Book of the Month Club From the Publisher "Often, mystery writers can either plot like devils or create believable characters. Kellerman stands out because he can do both. Masterfully." -- USA Today A Main Selection of the Book of the Month Club From the Inside Flap of psychological suspense, Jonathan Kellerman is without peer. Now, following an extraordinary eleven successive New York Times bestsellers, he has written an Alex Delaware novel to match his best--about the murder of a celebrity author and the truth behind her public facade.She was found stabbed to death on a quiet, shady street in one of L.A.'s safest neighborhoods. For three months the police have found no clues to the murder ofHope Devane, psychology professor and controversial author of a pop-psych bestseller, an angry indictment of men. Now Detective Milo Sturgis, newly assigned to the case, turns to his psychologist friend, Dr. Alex Delaware, looking for insights into Devane's life.To both men the cold stalking of Hope Devane suggests calculation fueled by hate--an execution. They discover why as they unlock, one by one, the veryprivate compartments of her life: her marriage, her shadowy work for a Beverly Hills clinic, the Conduct C Jonathan Kellerman, America's foremost author of psychological thrillers, turned from a distinguished career in child psychology to writing full-time.His works include ten previous Alex Delaware books-- When the Bough Breaks , Blood Test , Over the Edge , Silent Partner , Time Bomb , Private Eyes , Devil's Waltz , Bad Love , Self-Defense , and The Web --as well as the thriller TheButcher's Theater , two volumes of psychology, and two children's books. He and his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, have four children. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Few murder streets are lovely. This one was.Elm-shaded, a softly curving stroll to the University, lined with generous haciendas and California colonials above lawns as unblemished as fresh billiard felt.Giant elms. Hope Devane had bled to death under one of them, a block from her home, on the southwest corner.I looked at the spot again, barely exposed by a reluctant moon. The night-quiet was broken only by crickets and the occasional late-model well-tuned car.Locals returning home. Months past the curious-onlooker stage.Milo lit up a cigarillo and blew smoke out the window.Cranking my window down, I continued to stare at the elm. A twisting trunk as thick as a freeway pylon supported sixty feet of opaque foliage. Stout, grasping branches appeared frosted in the moonlight, some so laden they brushed the ground.Five years since the city had last pruned street trees. Property-tax shortfall. The theory was that the killer had hidden under the canopy, though no hint of presence other than bicycle tracks, a few feet away, was ever found.Three months later, theory was all that remained and not much of that.Milo's unmarked Ford shared the block with two other cars, both Mercedeses, both with parking permits on their windshields.After the murder, the city had promised to trim the elms. No follow-through yet.Milo had told me about it with some bitterness, cursing politicians but really damning the cold case."A couple of news stories, then nada." "Current events as fast food," I'd said. "Quick, greasy, forgettable.""Aren't we the cynic.""Professional training: aiming for rapport with the patient."That had gotten a laugh out of him. Now he frowned, brushed hair off his forehead, and blew wobbly smoke rings.Edging the car up the block, he parked again. "That's her house." He pointed to one of the colonials, smallish, but well-kept. White board front, four columns, dark shutters, shiny fittings on a shiny door. Three steps up from the sidewalk a flagstone path cut through the lawn. A picket gate blocked the driveway.Two upstairs windows were amber behind pale curtains."Someone home?" I said."That's his Volvo in the driveway."Light-colored station wagon."He's always home," said Milo. "Once he gets in he never leaves.""Still mourning?"He shrugged. "She drove a little red Mustang. She was a lot younger than him.""How much younger?""Fifteen years.""What about him interests you?""The way he acts when I talk to him.""Nervous?""Unhelpful. Paz and Fellows thought so, too. For what that's worth."He didn't think much of the first detectives on the case and the common ground probably bothered him as much as anything."Well," I said, "isn't the husband always the first suspect? Though stabbing her out on the street doesn't sound typical.""True." He rubbed his eyes. "Braining her in the bedroom would have been more manual. But it happens." Twirling the cigar. "Live long enough, everything happens.""Where exactly were the bicycle tracks?""Just north of the body but I wouldn't make much of those. Lab guys say they could have been anywhere from one to ten days old. A neighbor kid, a student, a fitness freak, anyone. And no one I talked to when I did the door-to-door noticed an unusual biker that whole week.""What's an unusual biker?""Someone who didn't fit in.""Someone nonwhite?""Whatever works.""Quiet neighborhood like this," I said, "it's surprising no one saw or heard anything at eleven p.m.""Coroner said it's possible she didn't scream. No defense wounds, no tentatives, so she probably didn't struggle much.""True." I'd read the autopsy findings. Read the entire file, starting with Paz and Fellows's initial report and ending with the pathologist's dictated drone and the packet of postmortem photos. How many such pictures had I seen over the years? It never got easier."No scream," I said, "because of the heart wound?""Coroner said it could have collapsed the heart, put her into instant shock."He snapped thick fingers softly, then ran his hand over his face, as if washing without water. What I could see of his profile was heavy as a walrus's, pocked and fatigued.He smoked some more. I thought again of the preautopsy photos, Hope Devane's body ice-white under the coroner's lights. Three deep purple stab wounds in close-up: chest, crotch, just above the left kidney.The forensic scenario was that she'd been taken by surprise and dispatched quickly by the blow that exploded her heart, then slashed a second time above the vagina, and finally laid facedown on the sidewalk and stabbed in the back."A husband doing that," I said. "I know you've seen worse but it seems so calculated.""This husband's an intellectual, right? A thinker." Smoke escaped the car in wisps, decaying instantly at the touch of night air. "Truth is, Alex, I want it to be Seacrest for selfish reasons. Cause if it's not him, it's a goddamn logistical nightmare." "Too many suspects.""Oh yeah," he said, almost singing it. "Lots of people who could've hated her." Read more