Strange Los Angeles duo solving crimes
.. .. .. .. Ellie Barker lost her mother before she was even 3. Her body was found, shot in the head, in the remains of a fiery car wreck off Los Angeles’ Mulholland Dr.
Now 40 and a millionaire thanks to the sale of her fitnesswear company, Barker wants answers: who killed her mother and why? Several detectives have already looked into the case but were unable to unearth any credible witnesses or suspects.
Enter LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis and his “brilliant” sidekick, psychologist Alex Delaware.
Handed the cold case despite his own reluctance, Sturgis starts digging into Barker’s mother’s past, unravelling decades-old relationships, hatreds, loyalties and crimes.
As usual, Jonathan Kellerman has produced a well-plotted tale that unfolds satisfactorily, twisting and turning until he finally reveals the truth. He cleverly keeps us guessing to the end, using misdirection and half-truths to hide the true story of what happened to Barker’s mother. As they dig, they realise people are still alive who would rather the truth was not uncovered. Serpentine reaches a credible outcome, and ties up all the loose ends up with enough left undeclared so we can enjoy thinking about what happens next for the characters, for a short time at least.
But having read more than a few of Kellerman’s Sturgis/delaware novels — he’s written more than 40 books, many featuring the mismatched pair — I’ve realised Delaware is not actually a likeable hero. He does the job, for sure, but he comes across as a know-it-all who thinks far too much of himself. The character doesn’t add a lot to the story, apart from a sounding board. And the repartee between Sturgis and Delaware, littered with in-jokes that aren’t funny and leaps of logic that are in places puzzling, is plain annoying. No one talks like that.
And not only Sturgis and Delaware talk in this irritating kind of fashion — a half-sentence language of half words — so do some of the other characters. It adds a slap-dash feel to the novel that it doesn’t deserve, given the care that has gone into the plot.
Despite that, Kellerman keeps the story moving and it never becomes annoying enough to toss aside. — Helen Van Berkel