The Conspiracy Club

By: Jonathan Kellerman

Narrated by: Rob Kahn

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

When his brief, passionate romance with nurse Jocelyn Banks is cut short by her kidnapping and brutal murder, Dr. Jeremy Carrier is left emotionally devastated, haunted by his lover's grisly demise and warily eyed by police still seeking a prime suspect in the unsolved slaying. To escape the pain, he buries himself in his work as staff psychologist at City Central Hospital, only to be drawn deeper into a waking nightmare when more women turn up murdered in the same gruesome fashion as Jocelyn Banks...and the suspicion surrounding Jeremy intensifies. Now, the only way to prove his innocence and put his torment to rest is to follow the trail of a cunning psychopath.

Spurring on Jeremy's investigation is Dr. Arthur Chess, an enigmatic pathologist who specializes in examining the dead, but harbors a keen fascination with the darker deeds committed by the living. Arthur draws Jeremy into an unexpected friendship, and into the confidence of a cryptic society devoted to matters unknown and unspoken. When he suddenly slips away, Jeremy is left to contend with an onslaught of anonymous clues and the growing realization that a harrowing game of cat and mouse has been set in motion.

But who besides Jeremy is playing? And who is making the rules? Before the killer strikes again, Jeremy races to connect the disturbing puzzle pieces being fed to him. Yet his search for answers only seems to yield more questions. And deepening the mystery is the undeniable presence of someone watching it all, and guiding Jeremy's investigation from behind the scenes. As the game intensifies, Jeremy must decide if a secret ally is setting him on the right path...or a sadistic enemy is setting him up for a fate far beyond even the most twisted imagination.

©2003 Jonathan Kellerman (P)2003 Random House, Inc., Random House Audio, A Division Of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Turn the page and you're hooked." (The New York Times Book Review)
"A gripping, intricately plotted...novel of psychological suspense...Kellerman is a master at building character and slowly unfolding events, divulging just the right amount of information." (Publishers Weekly)
"Quick-witted...full of both well-handled innuendo and strongly visual drama." (The New York Times)

The conspiracy club

Great mystery, interesting developments with Kellerman’s prerequisite dark human psychology. Internet ing characters and dynamic developments

Good story - a little predictable

Any additional comments?

A good story, but I swear I have read at least 2 other books with very similar plots and characters. Therefore many elements were very predictable. Still love Kellerman though!

Best Kellerman Yet

Kellerman seems to get better with each novel. In "The Conspiracy Club" he finally gets past the point-of-view switching which so badly mars his otherwise terrific Delaware-Sturgis mysteries. The story stays with Jeremy Carrier, an excellent character: a good person who doesn't know he's good. Carrier's painful emergence from emotional numbness (following a traumatic loss) is convincingly portrayed and, even better, his coming back to life is intertwined with his deepening involvement in an ingeniously plotted double mystery.

Not his best

Overall story was well written. However, it was difficult to continue to listen the the monotone voice of the narrator.

Hauntingly Delicious

Loved the audio performance and especially the MUSIC and the characters were mysterious and creepy

well done

This is my first book by this author and I enjoyed it very much. I was impressed the narrator pronounced the medical terms so well. My only beef was that the character did some things that seemed pretty unbelievable but overall a great book. I'll read more of Kellerman.

Interesting story bit of a slow start

An interesting story, good plot not in the same class as Stig Larson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series but close.

I found the author's extended vocabulary a little unnecessary and detracted from the story rather than adding to it. In audio format the vocabulary sounds particularly pretentious but it ceased to bug me toward the end of the book. On a few occasions I was confronted with some unknown words, in audio format this is distracting because the story moves on and you tend to miss the next few sentences while your trying to take in the new word. What is a "Fistula" anyway?

The performance was ok, understandable but there are much better narrators out there.

not enough legs...

Took a long time to get going. I've read all of the Alex Delaware so you can imagine my disappointment.

One hundred twenty eight characters.

Weird while intriguing. Makes one think. Fifteen words is too long. Too much pain to endure

Interesting

A nice departure from the Alex Delaware series. I enjoyed the mystery as well as the insight into the lead character. It was nice to have an intellectual hero instead of the physical for a change. A real view of the way violence can change people.