One advantage of staying home sick is that I can get some reading done. I won’t be able to keep up this pace for long — the books I’ve been reading lately have just been little quick reads.

Book #7 is Jonathan Kellerman’s latest novel, Twisted. Unlike most of Kellerman’s other novels, the protagonist is not Alex Delaware, but a female detective first introduced in Billy Straight, Petra Connor. The back of the book reads:

Lifeless bodies sprawl in a dance-club parking lot after a brutal L.A. drive-by. Of the four seemingly random victims, one stands out: a girl with pink shoes who cannot be identified – and who, days later, remains a Jane Doe. With zero leads and no apparent motive, it’s another case destined for the cold file – until Petra Connor decides to follow her instincts and descends into a world of traveling grifters and bloodthirsty killers, pursuing a possible eyewitness whose life is in mortal danger.Finding her elusive quarry – alive – isn’t all Petra has on her plate: departmental politics threatens to sabotage her case, and her personal life isn’t doing much better. If all that wasn’t enough, Isaac Gomez, a whiz-kid grad student researching homicide statistics at the station house, is convinced he’s stumbled upon a bizarre connection between several unsolved murders. The victims had nothing in common, yet each died by the same method, on the same date – a date that’s rapidly approaching again. And that leaves Petra with little time to unravel the twisted logic of a cunning predator who’s evaded detection for years – and whose terrible hour is once more at hand.

I enjoyed the book. I like Kellerman’s change of pace with the new protagonist. He’s probably getting a little burned out writing about Alex Delaware all the time.

Page count: 2,268/15,000

This entry was posted on Friday, February 11th, 2005 and is filed under police procedural, psychological suspense. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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