After 23 popular series novels, Jonathan Kellerman knows better than to mess with a successful formula. So EVIDENCE, the latest in his Alex Delaware series, delivers pretty much what fans expect. That is both its strength and its weakness.
A security guard keeping watch over the abandoned shell of a huge house in a very expensive section of Los Angeles discovers the dead bodies of a man and a woman one evening and immediately calls the police. Veteran homicide Milo Sturgis is put in charge of the investigation, and he immediately calls in his long-time investigation aid, psychological consultant Dr. Alex Delaware.
The dead couple was using the unfinished house as a love nest at the time of the murders. The man is identified as Desmond Backer, an architect renowned for his eco-friendly designs, and more privately renowned for his success at seducing various women. What’s puzzling is what Backer had to do with such a garish and wastefully designed house. What’s even more puzzling is the identification of the dead woman he was with.
With Delaware in tow, Sturgis begins interviewing Backer’s most recent business relations, as well as researching the very long and complicated story of the ownership of the property where the murders occurred, and why the house was left unfinished for so long. In the midst of all this, the murder scene is suddenly set on fire, and another body is found among the burnt ruins.
While Delaware narrates the case, as per the series formula, he takes a surprisingly diminished and almost passive role in the investigation. Except for the occasional psychological insight, mostly prompted by Sturgis, Delaware here is an almost silent Watson to Sturgis’ Holmes, with less-than-deductive reasoning.
The novel also suffers from a serious lack of any character insight or depth. Perhaps owing to the intriguing but complex details of the property and the various suspects involved, we learn absolutely nothing new or different about the otherwise observant Delaware or the gay but gruff and refreshingly non-stereotypical Sturgis. Even Delaware’s usual reflections about his hometown base of Los Angeles — which seems to annoy, rather than amuse him here — are kept to a sub-minimum.
But when Kellerman presents his piercing descriptive detailing of the police chief at the beginning of chapter 34, he proves that he’s still got his novelist chops, and it makes us yearn for more. Even with this annoying lack of depth, EVIDENCE presents a story that’s unusual and complicated enough to drive you to the very end just to see how it all gets resolved. Not a bad feat for any mystery story.
Let’s hope that the next Delaware installment includes a bit more of what it promises. —Alan Cranis
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• CAPITAL CRIMES by Jonathan & Faye Kellerman
• DOUBLE HOMICIDE by Jonathan & Faye Kellerman
