Self-Defense: An Alex Delaware Novel
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
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.
Jonathan Kellerman
Jonathan Kellerman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty bestselling crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, The Butcher’s Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted, and True Detectives. With his wife, bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman, he coauthored Double Homicide and Capital Crimes. He is also the author of two children’s books and numerous nonfiction works, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children and With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and has been nominated for a Shamus Award.
Read more from Jonathan Kellerman
When the Bough Breaks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Test Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Over the Edge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alex Delaware: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Self-Defense
Suspense For You
Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5None of This Is True: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Then She Was Gone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If We Were Villains: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Housemaid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lagos Wife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Thing He Told Me: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brother Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Revival: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The It Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl Who Was Taken: A Gripping Psychological Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfect Marriage: A Completely Gripping Psychological Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lying Game: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hollow Places: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Mercedes: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Misery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maidens: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Whisper Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Billy Summers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Self-Defense
280 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5If there was such a thing as a forensic psychologist procedural, this would be it. Lots of focus on investigative procedure, psychologist talking things through with his detective friend. Rather dry. The most impressive thing about the book is the way the author manages to pull together a conspiracy involving ten distinct characters in a way that makes sense in the end.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This felt a little jumpy at times, like an assumption needed to be made but you had to go back to figure out what the assumption was.
But overall another good whodunit. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I’m getting a bit tired of the little blonde innocents as patients. This is one instance where the date of publication definitely hinders reading it many years later. It might have been cutting edge then, it wouldn’t be published now.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Kellerman lost my faith in him massively in this book. He is not a thriller writer of the traditional ilk. He is a keen observer and a great describer. He is at his best when he reveals the details of people and their habitats.But the things he is good at are bad for the thriller genre. This bulky collection could have been a wonderful showcase of his talents and in a way they are. But Kellerman cannot make his victims count.He can show violence brilliantly, but cannot reveal the tragedy behind the violence. Whenever he succeeds at this though, it is at the expense of interest, suspense, pacing, and development.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Somewhat better motivated book than the last. Still nothing much in the way of psychological insight, not even real dream interpretation. Literary block and pseudo-Nietzchean blather.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This Alex Delaware novel contains less over-the-top plotting than most in the series, so it moves along with reasonable assurance and plausibility for most of its considerable length. In short, Delaware's treating a young woman who's remembered a scary incident from her childhood. Was it murder? The complication is that the incident in question involves her father, who's a famously reclusive writer/artist. He's a silly character indeed -- Kellerman shouldn't have tried to make him sound like a dime-store Hemingway on speed every time he opens his mouth -- but this flaw isn't fatal. What absolutely kills off Self-defense is the last 30 pages or so, in which the intricacies of the denouement are explicated via a series of disastrously boring depositions given to lawyers.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'm a Kellerman fan, but I can't push aside the feeling that he goes on and on and on for tooooooo long! We want the story and the action to develop and he just keeps "filling" the book.The story was nice, the surprises at the ending good, it just takes much too long to read :)