Book 1

It began with a double murder: particularly vicious, particularly gruesome. There was only one witness: but little Melody Quinn can't or won't say a word. Which is where child psychologist Alex Delaware comes in - and takes the first step into a maelstrom of atrocities...

Book 2

Blood Test

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 25 March 1986
Little Woody Swope was gravely ill. Treatment was possible, if painful. But his parents, members of a bizarre sect called the Touchers, threatened to take him out of hospital. Then Woody was gone. So were the Swopes, leaving their motel suite heavily bloodstained. Enter Alex Delaware, child psychologist, young, burned out and semi-retired. He and his LA cop friend Milo find a heap of suspects - an ageing ex-hippy doctor; a back-country police chief; a male stripper; even Nona, Woody's sister, a flame-haired Lolita with hate in her eyes and larceny in her soul. But the truth was more bizarre than even Alex could have imagined...

Book 3

Over the Edge

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 23 April 1987
OVER THE EDGE: The case against Jamey Cadmus seems open and shut. Found clutching a bloody knife at the scene of a horrifying double murder, he's a prime suspect in a series of killings that have rocked Los Angeles. Even his lawyer won't do more than plead diminished responsibility. No one - not the police, not the family, not the lawyers - wants Alex Delaware lifting up stones. But under those stones lies something unspeakable. BLOOD TEST: Little Woody Swope was gravely ill. But his parents, members of a bizarre sect, threatened to take him out of hospital. Then Woody was gone. So were the Swopes, leaving their motel suite heavily bloodstained. Enter Alex Delaware, child psychologist, and LA cop Milo Sturgis, who find a heap of suspects - an ageing ex-hippy doctor; a back-country police chief; a male stripper; a flame-haired Lolita with hate in her eyes and larceny in her soul. But the truth was more bizarre than even Alex could have imagined.

Book 4

Silent Partner

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 1 September 1989
Among the guests is Sharon Ransom, beautiful but troubled - and Alex's former lover. She is in desperate distress, but Alex is reluctant to revive unhappy memories. A few days later Sharon is found dead, a presumed suicide. But Sharon's is just the first death. Others will follow, all linked to one man - Dr Paul Peter Kruse, a power-junkie with a sinister sexual hold over women. Alex's curiosity to discover the truth leads him further and further into a chlling maze of cover-ups, police corruption, insanity, and a decades-old Hollywood murder...

Book 5

Time Bomb

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 1 September 1990
The cheerful chaos of a California schoolyard is shattered one autumn day by gunfire. No children are hurt, but a sniper is shot down - and psychologist Dr Alex Delaware is called in to help the kids cope with the trauma. Then comes another stunning surprise: the identity of the sniper. And Delaware is intrigued by the chance to explore intimately the forces that created such a twisted personality. But as he becomes more deeply involved, he discovers an ever-widening net of malice has been cast - one that reaches far beyond the school compound, and which may already have claimed innocent lives...TIME BOMB is a masterpiece of psychological suspense which shocks...and shocks again.

Book 6

Private Eyes

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 10 October 1991
Psychologist Dr Alex Delaware has always looked on Melissa Dickinson as one of his greatest triumphs. A terrified, tormented seven-year-old when she first appeared in his Los Angeles surgery, Melissa after two years seemed totally recovered. But nine years later Melissa contacts Alex again, anxious this time for her mother. As Alex recalls, weatlthy widow Gina Dickinson has problems of her own. For two decades she has hidden herself away from the eyes of the world - ever since a vicious acid attack destroyed the face of Hollywood actress Gina Prince. Then the reclusive Gina climbs into her car - and totally disappears. And as Alex and Detective Milo Sturgis lead the search for her, they find their quest taking them out of the here and now and into a grotesque, labyrinthine private history as violent and sinister as any bad dream...How well did Alex ever understand his star patient Melissa? How could he have 'cured' her when he never even guessed at the evil and hatred that formed her inheritance?

Book 7

Devil's Waltz

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 8 October 1992
Child psychologist Dr Alex Delaware returns after five years to Los Angeles' Western Pediatrics Hospital, called in by a former colleague to help with the case of twenty-one-month-old Cassie Jones. The little girl is persistently, terrifyingly ill, and nobody can explain why. Her doctor, Stephanie Eves, has finally come to suspect the unthinkable - that Cassie's own mother is deliberately trying to make her own child sick. But Stephanie needs an independent assessment of the Jones family, for Cassie Jones is none other than the granddaughter of the Chairman of the Board. Teaming up once again with his old friend Detective Milo Sturgis, Alex starts to investigate Western Pediatric's First Family, but rapidly uncovers layer after layer of high-level corruption and intrigue concerning the hospital itself. Added to which are the brutal killings of two members of the staff. Most importantly, Alex must find the answers to some intensely private questions about the workings of one family, with all its intimate deceits and murderous hatreds. For at any given time, young Cassie Jones could be back at Western Pediatrics fighting for her life..

Book 8

Bad Love

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 9 December 1993
It came in a plain brown wrapper, no return address - a tape recording of a horrifying, soul-lacerating scream, followed by the sound of a childlike voice delivering the enigmatic and haunting message: 'Bad love. Bad love. Don't give me the bad love...' For child psychologist Dr Alex Delaware, the chant is the first intimation that he is about to enter a living nightmare. Others soon follow: disquieting laughter echoing over a phone line, a chilling trespass outside his home, a sickening act of vandalism. A carefully orchestrated campaign of vague threats and intimidation rapidly builds to a crescendo as harassment turns to terror, mischief to madness. Searching his memory for the phrase 'bad love', Alex recalls a symposium he attended commemorating the work of Dr Andres de Bosch who ran a clinic for troubled adolescents. But when he tries to contact the other delegates, Alex discovers a seemingly random series of violent deaths amongst them. As he delves deeper into the history of the clinic, the escalating pattern of violence becomes inescapably clear. And if Alex fails to decipher the twisted logic of the stalker's mind-games, he will be the next one to die.

Book 9

Self-Defense

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 1 January 1995
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.

Book 10

The Web

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 7 December 1995
After thirty years of attending to the phsical and mental health of the inhabitants of Knife Island, a tiny community in the Micronesian archipelago, Dr William Moreland feels it would be of benefit to his successor, and to his colleagues throughout the Pacific, if his records were properly analysed. Only too grateful to escape the violent atmosphere of Los Angeles and recoup their emotional resources, Dr Alex Delaware and his partner Robin accept Moreland's invitation to spend a sabbatical on the island to help him in the task. But Knife Island is not the paradise of the travel brochures. The murder of a young woman has created an atmosphere of division and fear. A potential development threatens a large part of the island with environmental pollution. And Dr Moreland is not universally regarded as the saintly healer of his own mythology.
Co-habiting with cockroaches the size of dinner plates and spiders more venomous than rattlesnakes, Alex and Robin discover the doctor is concealing an older and darker mystery, a conspiracy of such startling magnitude that even Alex, with his knowledge of the depths of human depravity, is hard put to comprehend, or understand why he has been invited into such a horrific web of intrigue and abasement.

Book 11

The Clinic

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 5 December 1996
She was found stabbed to death on a quiet, shaded street in one of Los Angeles' safest neighbourhoods. For three months the police have found no clues to the murder of Hope Devane, psychology professor and controversial author of a pop-psych bestseller, and angry indictment of men. Now homicide detective Milo Sturgis, newly assigned to the case, turns to his friend, psychologist Dr Alex Delaware, looking for insights into Devane's life. To both men the cold stalking of Hope Devane suggests calculation fuelled by hate - an execution. They discover why as they unlock, one by one, the very private compartments of her life: her marriage, her shadowy work for a Beverly Hills clinic, the Conduct Committee she ran with an iron hand at the University, and her baffling link to another murder victim. But it is when Alex delves into her childhood that he begins to understand the formidable woman she was - and the ties that entangled her life until the horrifying act of betrayal that ended it.

Book 12

Survival of the Fittest

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 10 November 1997
A retarded child is ritually murdered while on a school outing in a nature reserve. The police, led by Milo Sturgis, have got nowhere and are hampered by the girl's parents: she was the daughter of an Israeli diplomat and her father refuses to allow any publicity for fear that the killing was anti-Semitic and that the death would encourage others. But Milo suspects the murderer is more 'ordinary', and with the help of Alex Delaware, tries to track any previous murders of retarded or disabled children. With painstaking research they reveal a ghastly trail of slaughter. In the midst of this they realise there is another investigator following their tracks - Daniel Shavari from Jerusalem, who last appeared in THE BUTCHER'S THEATRE - and whose orders may go beyond merely identifying the killer.

Book 13

Monster

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 1 December 1999
Two murder victims have been discovered in the boots of their cars. The first was would-be actor, Richard Dada; the second Dr Claire Argent, a psychiatrist at a maximum security hospital. Milo Sturgis tends to think there will be plenty of suspects amongst her clientele, but as his friend Alex Delaware remarks, none of his patients ever killed anyone and as they investigate the backgrounds of both victims it appears that Milo needs to look elsewhere, because neither of them are who they made themselves out to be. As they slowly unravel the strands of their lies another, truly monstrous, character emerges: a man who gains his pleasure not from mere mutilattion and murder but from making his victims watch their own forthcoming death on film. And somehow he has control over some of the Claire Argent's patients, apparently securely behind bars. In one of the most complex plots he has yet devised, Jonathan Kellerman has created a devastating mystery thriller.

Book 14

Dr Death

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 5 December 2000
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.

Book 15

Flesh and Blood

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 20 November 2001

When Alex Delaware first saw Lauren Teague she was a sullen teenager with the usual problems: bad grades at school, moody, uncommunicative with her parents - which is why they thought she needed to see a psychologist.

Then years later, a shock: at a batchelor party for a fellow doctor, Delaware finds himself uncomfortably watching two strippers going through a degrading display - and one of them is Lauren Teague. And now her mother is pleading for help once again. Lauren has disappeared - and she thinks Delaware can find her. He's not so sure - but when her disappearance turns into a murder investigation, he knows he owes it to the dead girl to find out what demons drove her to such a horrifying end . . .


Book 16

The Murder Book

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 1 January 2002

Alex Delaware's relationship with his longterm partner is on the rocks. He is floored when Robin announces she's heading off on a three-month music tour.

But he soon has other things to think about. He is sent an envelope with no return address. Inside, he finds an album with gold letters on it - THE MURDER BOOK. It's full of macabre pictures of murders, with brief descriptions of how, and why, the victims died. One picture is marked 'Not solved' - the horrifically mutilated body of a young woman.

Unsettled, Alex calls his friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, who seems strangely familiar with the case. What connects the photograph with Milo's past? What's more, why has it been sent to Alex - and by whom?


Book 17

Cold Heart

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 1 January 2003

Juliet Kipper, a gifted painter, is strangled in the LA gallery where her first solo show has opened to critical acclaim, and Milo Sturgis takes on the murder investigation as a favour to an old friend. He consults Alex Delaware, who, researching parallels with other deaths, looks for artists killed when on the verge of a breakthrough or comeback. And he finds two others.

The investigation points to a gruesome, sadistic pattern of death, taking Milo and Alex into the dark side of the art world, and Alex's ex-lover Robin into terrible danger.


Book 18

Therapy

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 23 March 2004
Investigating the case of a lovers' lane murder of a pair of college students, Homicide Lieutenant Milo Sturgis enlists the help of Alex Delaware. As the two peel back layer upon layer of deception, they encounter shocking truths that extend way beyond the slaughter of two young lovers. Something other than therapy has been taking place within the plush, soundproof chambers of the young man's therapist . . .

Book 19

Rage

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 1 January 2005
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.

Book 20

Gone

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published 1 January 2006
#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?