Rage (Alex Delaware Series #19)

Synopsis

In a host of consecutive bestsellers, Jonathan Kellerman has kept readers spellbound with the intense, psychologically acute adventures of Dr. Alex Delaware–and with excursions through the raw underside of L.A. and the coldest alleys of the criminal mind. Rage offers a powerful new case in point, as Delaware and LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis revisit a horrifying crime from the past that has taken on shocking and deadly new dimensions.

Troy Turner and Rand Duchay were barely teenagers when they kidnapped and murdered a younger child. Troy, a remorseless sociopath, died violently behind bars. But the hulking, slow-witted Rand managed to survive his stretch. Now, at age twenty-one, he’s emerged a haunted, rootless young man with a pressing need: to talk–once again–with psychologist Alex Delaware. But the young killer comes to a brutal end, that conversation never takes place.

Has karma caught up with Rand? Or has someone waited for eight patient years to dine on ice-cold revenge? Both seem strong possibilities to Sturgis, but Delaware’s suspicions run deeper . . . and darker. Because fear in the voice of the grownup Rand Duchay–and his eerie final words to Alex: “I’m not a bad person”–betray untold secrets. Buried revelations so horrendous, and so damning, they’re worth killing for.

As Delaware and Sturgis retrace their steps through a grisly murder case that devastated a community, they discover a chilling legacy of madness, suicide, and multiple killings left in its wake–and even uglier truths waiting to be unearthed. And the nearer they come to understanding anunspeakable crime, the more harrowingly close they get to unmasking a monster hiding in plain sight.

Rage finds Jonathan Kellerman in phenomenal form–orchestrating a relentlessly suspenseful, devilishly unpredictable plot to a finale as stunning and thought-provoking as it is satisfying.

Publishers Weekly

Although he has done everything from Broadway to film and television, Rubinstein was apparently born to play Dr. Alex Delaware-Kellerman's famously successful clinical psychologist whose cases get darker and more complicated over the years. This is Rubinstein's 19th audio outing as Delaware, and he pulls it off brilliantly: his voice changes definitively but never goes over the top as he moves between the cool, smooth psychologist and his edgier co-investigator, L.A. police lieutenant Milo Sturgis. Rubinstein also brings to instant life dozens of other male and female characters, from love interests to at-risk teenagers and sex criminals-giving each a distinctive personality. An earlier case resurfaces when the teenage boy who abducted and killed a two-year-old girl is released after eight years in detention and calls Delaware to set up a meeting. The boy never appears; his murdered body is later found, and Delaware and Sturgis are quickly involved in a very nasty investigation that takes them into a bleak landscape where children are the victims. There are long stretches of speculative dialogue between Alex and Milo that annoyed some critics of the book, but Rubinstein cleverly turns these into verbal tennis matches that make for fascinating listening. Simultaneous release with the Ballantine hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 25). (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Child psychologist-turned-novelist Jonathan Kellerman uses his knowledge of the psyche's weaknesses to create chilling crime novels, many starring detective (and former child psychologist, natch) Alex Delaware and cop friend Milo Sturgis.