Obsession (Alex Delaware Series #21) » (Reprint)

Child psychologist-turned-novelist Jonathan Kellerman uses his knowledge of the psyche's weaknesses to create chilling crime novels, many starring detective (and former child psychologist, natch) Alex Delaware and cop friend Milo Sturgis.

Popular psychologist Alex Delaware returns in this riveting thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman.

Patty Bigelow had finally gotten herself on her feet'bought a home, earned her RN, secured a good job in the ER. And that's when her wild-child sister Leila ran off with a trucker, leaving an eight-year-old daughter on Patty's doorstep. Patty prepares to shoulder the burden as she has so many others, but Tanya proves an unexpected handful. Bewildered, her reluctant guardian enlists the aid of child psychologist Alex Delaware.

Fifteen years later, Tanya is a capable, high-strung young woman mourning the loss of her aunt. She's baffled by Patty's last words, a deathbed confession of murder: "One of the people who lived near us. You got to make it right..."

Publishers Weekly

The 21st Alex Delaware novel (after 2006's Gone) from bestseller Kellerman contains fewer twists than usual for this contemporary thriller series. Once again, Delaware, an accomplished psychologist, teams with his friend Milo Sturgis, an LAPD detective, to probe a mystery, though this time there's considerable doubt as to the nature of the puzzle. Teenager Tanya Bigelow, whom Delaware treated as a child for obsessive-compulsive disorder, consults him because her aunt Patty, who raised her, conveyed a cryptic message just before she died, apparently confessing to a crime. Shortly after Delaware and Sturgis start investigating, one of Patty's former neighbors turns up dead, the first in a series of corpses that appear, possibly as a result of the duo's turning over old rocks. Since the identity of the killer is revealed relatively early on, the final sections are short on suspense. (Mar. 27)