Alex Delaware

Latest release: February 7, 2023
Series
37
Books

About this ebook series

Millie’s is a small family — just a mother, a father, a small brother, Hamish, and her. Both her parents had been orphaned (and were introduced in Watts’ novel Flower), but the family they created was tight-knit and loving. When Millie’s mother announces that she is pregnant, it seems life is perfect. They have each other, and, although the Great Depression has brought hard times to their small town, Millie’s father’s services as a blacksmith are still in demand. But when her mother dies, suddenly everything changes. Her father retreats into depression and Millie, only thirteen, finds herself responsible for a newborn baby. When a stranger appears and threatens the remnants of the family even further, Millie musters courage she never dreamed she had to rebuild the home that means so much to her.

Irene N. Watts’ memorable story is as complex and as comforting as family life itself.
When the Bough Breaks
Book 1 · Jan 2010 ·
0.0
Millie’s is a small family — just a mother, a father, a small brother, Hamish, and her. Both her parents had been orphaned (and were introduced in Watts’ novel Flower), but the family they created was tight-knit and loving. When Millie’s mother announces that she is pregnant, it seems life is perfect. They have each other, and, although the Great Depression has brought hard times to their small town, Millie’s father’s services as a blacksmith are still in demand. But when her mother dies, suddenly everything changes. Her father retreats into depression and Millie, only thirteen, finds herself responsible for a newborn baby. When a stranger appears and threatens the remnants of the family even further, Millie musters courage she never dreamed she had to rebuild the home that means so much to her.

Irene N. Watts’ memorable story is as complex and as comforting as family life itself.
Over the Edge
Book 3 · Sep 2001 ·
4.4
Suzanne Brockmann has taken romantic suspense by storm with her action-packed thrillers. Now she has written the most gripping novel of her career–an unforgettable story of an explosive hostage situation in which two people are caught between the call of duty and the lure of destiny.

Her passion is flying. As one of the best helicopter pilots in the naval reserves, Lieutenant Teri Howe is strong, dedicated, and highly skilled–until a past mistake surfaces, jeopardizing everything she’s worked for.

Rock steady Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok has made a career of tackling difficult challenges. So it’s no surprise when he comes to Teri’s aid, knowing that his personal code of honor–and perhaps his heart–will be at risk. But when a jet carrying an American senator’s daughter is hijacked, Stan’s unflinching determination and Teri’s steadfast courage are put to the ultimate test. The rescue mission will be daring and dangerous. But somewhere between peril and resolution, the line between friends and lovers begins to blur, pushing both their lives over the edge. . . .

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Suzanne Brockmann's Born to Darkness.
Silent Partner: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 4 · May 2003 ·
4.4
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
At a party for a controversial Los Angeles sex therapist, Alex Delaware encounters a face from his own past—Sharon Ransom, an exquisite, alluring lover who left him abruptly more than a decade earlier. Sharon now hints that she desperately needs help, but Alex evades her. The next day she is dead, an apparent suicide.
 
“A complex and haunting story of tangled personalities, deeply buried family secrets, and of violence lying thinly under the surface . . . hits the reader right between the eyes.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
 
Driven by guilt and sadness, Alex plunges into the maze of Sharon’s life—a journey that will take him through the pleasure palaces of California’s ultrarich, into the alleyways of the mind, where childhood terrors still hold sway.
Time Bomb: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 5 · May 2003 ·
4.8
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
By the time psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware reached the school the damage was done: A sniper had opened fire on a crowded playground, but was gunned down before any children were hurt.

“Virtually impossible to put aside until the final horrifying showdown.”—People
 
While the TV news crews feasted on the scene and Alex began his therapy sessions with the traumatized children, he couldn’t escape the image of a slight teenager clutching an oversized rifle. What was the identity behind the name and face: a would-be assassin, or just another victim beneath an indifferent California sky? Intrigued by a request from the sniper’s father to conduct a “psychological autopsy” of his child, Alex begins to uncover a strange pattern—it is a trail of blood. In the dead sniper’s past was a dark and vicious plot. And in Alex Delaware’s future is the stuff of grown-up nightmares: the face of real human evil.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.
Private Eyes: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 6 · May 2003 ·
4.3
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
The voice belongs to a woman, but Dr. Alex Delaware remembers a little girl. It is eleven years since seven-year-old Melissa Dickinson dialed the hospital help line for comfort—and found it in therapy with Alex Delaware. Now the lovely young heiress is desperately calling for the psychologist’s help once more. Only this time it looks like Melissa’s deepest childhood nightmare is really coming true.
 
“A page-turner from beginning to end.”—Los Angeles Times
 
Twenty years ago, Gina Dickinson, Melissa’s mother, suffered a grisly assault that left the budding actress irreparably scarred and emotionally crippled. Now her acid-wielding assailant is out of prison and back in L.A.—and Melissa is terrified that the monster has returned to hurt Gina again. But before Alex Delaware can even begin to soothe his former patient’s fears, Gina, a recluse for twenty years, disappears. And now, unless Delaware turns crack detective to uncover the truth, Gina Dickinson will be just one more victim of a cold fury that has already spawned madness . . . and murder.
Devil's Waltz: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 7 · May 2003 ·
4.4
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
In one of the most frightening and challenging cases of his career, Dr. Alex Delaware must confront a strange medical mystery involving a child.
 
“Reads like wildfire . . . harrowing suspense.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
Twenty-one-month-old Cassie Jones is the picture of health. Yet her parents rush her to the emergency room night after night with symptoms no doctor can explain. Cassie’s parents seem genuinely concerned. Her favorite nurse is a model of devotion. When Delaware is called in to investigate, instinct tells him that one of them could be a monster. Then a physician is brutally murdered. A shadowy death is revealed. And Alex and his friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, have only hours to uncover the link between Cassie’s terrifying condition and these shocking, seemingly unrelated events.

BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.
Bad Love: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 8 · Apr 2003 ·
4.5
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
It came in a plain brown wrapper, no return address—an audiocassette recording of a horrifying, soul-lacerating scream, followed by the sound of a childlike voice chanting: “Bad love. Bad love. Don’t give me the bad love.” For Alex Delaware the tape is the first intimation that he is about to enter a living nightmare. Others soon follow: disquieting laughter echoing over a phone line that suddenly goes dead, and a chilling act of trespass and vandalism. He has become the target of a carefully orchestrated campaign of vague threats and intimidation rapidly building to a crescendo as harassment turns to terror, mischief to madness.
 
“A wonderful, roller-coaster ride . . . a guaranteed page-turner.”—USA Today
 
With the help of his friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, Alex uncovers a series of violent deaths that may follow a diabolical pattern. And if he fails to decipher the twisted logic of the stalker’s mind games, Alex will be the next to die.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.
Self-Defense: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 9 · Apr 2003 ·
4.7
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
Dr. Alex Delaware doesn’t see many private patients anymore, but the young woman called Lucy is an exception. So is her dream. Lucy Lowell is referred to Alex by Los Angeles police detective Milo Sturgis. A juror at the agonizing trial of a serial killer, Lucy survived the trauma only to be tormented by a recurring nightmare: a young child in the forest at night, watching a strange and furtive act.
 
“Exciting . . . loaded with tension and packed with titillating insights.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
Now Lucy’s dream is starting to disrupt her waking life, and Alex is concerned. The power of the dream, its grip on Lucy’s emotions, suggests to him that it may be more than a nightmare. It may be the repressed childhood memory of something very real. Something like murder.
The Web: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 10 · Apr 2003 ·
4.6
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.

Psychologist-detective Dr. Alex Delaware finds terror in the heart of paradise in this relentlessly sinister novel by America's premier writer of psychological suspense. Three months in paradise, all expenses paid. It's an invitation Alex Delaware can't refuse. Dr. Woodrow Wilson Moreland, a revered scientist and philanthropist on the tiny Pacific island of Aruk, has invited Alex to his home to help him organize his papers for publication--a light workload leaving Alex plenty of time to enjoy a romantic interlude with Robin Castagna.

Quickly, however, secretive houseguests, frightening nocturnal visitors, and the elusive Dr. Moreland himself dim the pleasures of deep blue water and white sand.

The cases Moreland chooses to share--a patient driven to madness by a cruel, unspeakable act; a man who succumbed forty years ago to radiation poisoning after a nuclear blast; a young woman, brutally murdered, whose mutilated body was found on the beach just six months before--seem unconnected. And yet Alex can't help wondering what the good doctor is trying to tell him... and what Moreland's real reason for inviting him to Aruk is.

As Alex probes--with a little long-distance help from his friend LAPD detective Milo Sturgis--he comes to believe the answer lies hidden somewhere on Moreland's vast estate. Yet when he finally discovers the truth, the revelation will be more shocking than he could have imagined. And it will come too late to stem the tide of violence that threatens guilty and innocent alike on the lovely lost island of Aruk.

With his brilliant characterizations and rapid-fire pace, Jonathan Kellerman has redefined the boundaries of suspense, probing real-life horrors and innermost fears in a novel that transfixes from first page to last.
The Clinic: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 11 · Apr 2003 ·
3.9
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
Professor Hope Devane’s male-bashing pop-psych bestseller created a storm of controversy on the talk-show circuit. Now she is dead, brutally slashed on a quiet street in one of L.A.’s safest neighborhoods. The LAPD’s investigation has gone cold, and homicide detective Milo Sturgis turns to his friend Dr. Alex Delaware for a psychological profile of the victim—and a portrait of a killer.
 
“Engrossing . . . mines new realms of psychological terror . . . holds the reader riveted.”—Playboy
 
Hope Devane had very different public and private faces. The killer could be any one of the millions who read her book, or someone from the personal life she kept so carefully separate. As Alex and Milo dig deeper into her shadowy past, they will set an elaborate trap for her killer . . . and reveal the unspeakable act that triggered a dark chain of violence.

BONUS: This edition contains and excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.
Survival of the Fittest: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 12 · Apr 2003 ·
4.5
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
The daughter of a diplomat disappears on a school field trip—lured into the Santa Monica Mountains and killed in cold blood. Her father denies the possibility of a political motive. There are no signs of struggle and no evidence of sexual assault, leaving psychologist Alex Delaware and his friend LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis to pose the essential question: Why?
 
“Feverish in pace and rich in characters . . . a chilling and irresistible thriller.”—People
 
Working with Daniel Sharavi, a brilliant Israeli police inspector, Delaware and Sturgis soon find themselves ensnared in one of the darkest, most menacing cases of their careers. And when death strikes again, it is Alex who must go undercover, alone, to expose an unthinkable conspiracy of self-righteous brutality and total contempt for human life.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.
Monster: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 13 · Apr 2003 ·
4.3
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.

A second-rate actor is found mutilated in a car trunk. Then a psychologist at a Los Angeles hospital for the criminally insane is murdered in a similar grisly fashion. Suddenly the incoherent ramblings of an inmate at the presumably secure institution begin to make chilling sense—they are, in fact, horrifying predictions. Yet how can a barely functional psychotic locked behind asylum walls possibly know such vivid details of crimes committed in the outside world? Drawn into a labyrinth of secrets, revenge, sex, and manipulation, Dr. Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis set out to unlock this enigma and put an end to the brutal killings—before the madman predicts their own demise. . . .
Dr. Death: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 14 · Apr 2003 ·
4.4
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.

Who killed the killer? In this brilliant and startling psychological thriller, Jonathan Kellerman, perennial bestselling author, gives a sharp and timely twist to homicide's central question.

Someone has murdered euthanasia champion Dr. Eldon Mate--a self-styled Dr. Death responsible for scores of assisted suicides. In a burst of bloody irony, the killer chooses to dispatch the doctor in the back of Mate's own suicide van, hooking him up to the killing apparatus dubbed "the Humanitron"--and adding some butchering touches of his own. The case is assigned to veteran LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis, who turns, once again, to his friend Dr. Alex Delaware. But working this case raises a conflict of interest for Alex so profound that he can't even discuss it with Milo. The tension that develops between cop and psychologist further complicates an already baffling and complex murder investigation--one whose suspects include the families of Dr. Mate's "travelers," Mate's own son, and a psychopathic killer who relishes the geometry of death.

Dr. Death is a rich brew of unforgettable characters, labyrinthine plotting, page-turning prose, and the unique insights into the darkest corners of the human mind that have earned Jonathan Kellerman international accolades as the master of psychological suspense.
Flesh and Blood: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 15 · Apr 2003 ·
4.6
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.

Perennial bestseller and acknowledged master of the psychological thriller, Jonathan Kellerman has created a riveting and memorable Alex Delaware novel about a troubled and elusive young woman whose brutal murder forces the brilliant psychologist-detective to confront his own fallibility.

Lauren Teague is a beautiful, defiant, borderline-delinquent teenager when her parents bring her to Alex Delaware's office. But for all Alex's skill and effort, Lauren resists—angrily, provocatively. Reluctantly, the psychologist chalks Lauren up as one of the inevitable failures of a challenging profession. But years later, when Alex encounters Lauren as a stag party's featured entertainment, both doctor and patient are sticken with shame. And the ultimate horror takes place when, soon after, Lauren's brutalized corpse is found dumped in an alley. Alex disregards the advice of his trusted friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, and jeopardizes his relationship with longtime lover, Robin Castagna, in order to pursue Lauren's murderer. As he investigates his young patient's troubled past, Alex enters the shadowy worlds of fringe psychological experimentation and the sex industry, and then into mortal danger when lust and big money collide in Southern California.

Jonathan Kellerman's L.A. is evil, seductive, and unforgiving, and Flesh and Blood is mind-opening in its drama of a driven man's personal quest, breathtaking in its ingenious plot, filled with unforgettable characters, and topped off by a terrifying climax. This is suspense fiction at its finest.
The Murder Book: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 16 · Oct 2002 ·
4.3
Jonathan Kellerman has distinguished himself as the master of the psychological thriller. Now L.A. psychologist-detective Alex Delaware confronts a long-unsolved murder of unspeakable brutality—an ice-cold case whose resolution threatens his survival, and that of longtime friend, homicide detective, Milo Sturgis.

The nightmare begins when Alex receives a strange package in the mail with no return address. Inside is an ornate album filled with gruesome crime scene photos—a homicide scrapbook entitled The Murder Book. Alex can find no reason for anyone to send him this compendium of death, but when Milo views the book, he is immediately shaken by one of the images: a young woman, tortured, strangled, and dumped near a freeway ramp.

This was one of Milo’s first cases as a rookie homicide cop: a vicious killing that he failed to solve, because just as he and his training partner began to make headway, the department closed them down. Being forced to abandon the young victim tormented Milo. But his fears prevented him from pursuing the truth, and over the years he managed to forget. Or so he thought.

Now, two decades later, someone has chosen to stir up the past. As Alex and Milo set out to uncover what really happened twenty years ago, their every move is followed and their lives are placed in jeopardy. The relentless investigation reaches deep into L.A.’s nerve-centers of power and wealth—past and present. While peeling back layer after layer of ugly secrets, they discover that the murder of one forgotten girl has chilling ramifications that extend far beyond the tragic loss of a single life.

A classic story of good and evil, sacrifice and sin, The Murder Book is a gripping page-turner that illuminates the darkest corridors of the human mind. It is a stunning tour de force.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.
A Cold Heart: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 17 · Apr 2003 ·
4.7
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis summons his friend psychologist-sleuth Alex Delaware to a trendy gallery where a promising young artist has been brutally garroted on the night of her first major showing. The details of the murder scene immediately suggest to Alex not an impulsive crime of passion but the meticulous and taunting modus operandi of a serial killer.
 
“No one does psychological suspense as well as Jonathan Kellerman.”—Detroit Free Press
 
Delaware’s suspicions are borne out when he and Milo find a link between the artist’s death and the murder of a noted blues guitarist. The twisting trail leads from halfway houses to palatial mansions, from a college campus to the last place Alex ever expected: the doorstep of his ex-lover Robin Castagna. As more killings are discovered, unraveling the maddening puzzle assumes a chilling new importance—stopping a vicious psychopath who’s made cold-blooded murder his chosen art form.
Therapy: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 18 · Apr 2004 ·
4.5
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
Behind the yellow crime-scene tape, a brutal tableau awaits. On a lonely lovers’ lane in the hills of Los Angeles, a young couple lies murdered in a car. Each victim bears a single gunshot wound to the head. Though the female remains unidentified, her male companion has a name—Gavin Quick—and a troubled past that had landed him on a therapist’s couch.
 
“Labyrinthine twists, excellent pacing, and hard-boiled, swaggering dialogue.”—The Washington Post
 
It’s there, on familiar turf, that psychologist-sleuth Alex Delaware hopes to find vital clues. And that means going head-to-head with Dr. Mary Lou Koppel, a celebrity psychologist who fiercely guards the privacy of her clients . . . alive or dead. As Delaware follows a chain of greed, corruption, and betrayal snaking hideously through the profession he thought he knew, he’ll cross into territory even he never dreamed of treading.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.
Rage: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 19 · May 2005 ·
4.2
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
Troy Turner and Rand Duchay were barely teenagers when they murdered a younger child. While Troy died violently behind bars, the hulking, slow-witted Rand managed to survive his stretch. Now, at age twenty-one, he’s emerged a haunted, rootless man with a pressing need: to talk—once again—with psychologist Alex Delaware. But when Rand’s life comes to a brutal end, his words die with him.
 
LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis suspects that either karma or revenge caught up with Rand, but Delaware’s suspicions run darker. As Delaware and Sturgis retrace their steps through a grisly murder case that devastated a community, they discover madness, suicide, and even uglier truths waiting to be unearthed. And the nearer they come to understanding an unspeakable crime, the more harrowingly close they get to unmasking a monster hiding in plain sight.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.
Gone: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 20 · Mar 2006 ·
4.6
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
Missing acting students Dylan and Michaela are found in the remote mountains of Malibu, battered and terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor. But forensic evidence soon exposes the incident as a hoax, and the kids are charged as criminals themselves.
 
“Kellerman shows why he is called the ‘master of the psychological thriller.’”—Orlando Sentinel
 
After examining Michaela, psychologist Alex Delaware is certain that there’s more to this sordid psychodrama, and his instincts prove dead-on when she is savagely murdered. Casting their dragnet into the murkiest corners of L.A., Delaware and homicide cop Milo Sturgis unearth more questions than answers—and a host of eerily identical killings. What bizarre and brutal epidemic is infecting the city with terror, madness, and sudden, twisted death?
Obsession: An Alex Delaware Novel
Book 21 · Mar 2007 ·
4.7
#1 WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER • “Jonathan Kellerman’s novels are an obsession; once started it is hard to quit.”—Orlando Sentinel 

Tanya Bigelow was a solemn little girl when Dr. Alex Delaware successfully treated her obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Now, at nineteen, Tanya returns with a curious request: that Delaware investigate her aunt’s deathbed confession of murder. While Delaware doubts that Patty Bigelow was capable of such a horrific act, he agrees to look into the matter. Armed with only the vaguest details, Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Stugris retrace Patty’s and Tanya’s nomadic and increasingly puzzling life. Then a very real murder tears open a terrifying tunnel into the past, where secrets—and bodies—are buried. As the tension mounts, Delaware and Sturgis uncover a tangled history of desperation, vengeance, and death—a legacy of evil that refuses to die.

Praise for Obsession

“The characters are rich, the story’s well-plotted and you won’t stop reading.”Boston Herald

“Filled with Kellerman’s psychological insight and action-packed drama.”Toronto Sun