Private Eyes

An Alex Delaware Novel

By: Jonathan Kellerman

Narrated by: Alexander Adams

Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary

The voice belongs to a woman, but Dr. Alex Delaware remembers a little girl. It is 11 years since seven-year-old Melissa Dickinson dialed a hospital help line for comfort - and found it in therapy with Alex Delaware. Now the lovely young heiress is desperately calling for the psychologist's help once more. Only this time it looks like Melissa's deepest childhood nightmare is really coming true....

Twenty years ago, Gina Dickinson, Melissa's mother, suffered a grisly assault that left the budding actress irreparably scarred and emotionally crippled. Now her acid-wielding assailant is out of prison and back in L.A. - and Melissa is terrified that the monster has returned to hurt Gina again. But before Alex Delaware can even begin to soothe his former patient's fears, Gina, a recluse for 20 years, disappears. And now, unless Delaware turns crack detective to uncover the truth, Gina Dickinson will be just one more victim of a cold fury that has already spawned madness - and murder.

©2003 Jonathan Kellerman (P)2014 Random House Audio

Critic Reviews

"Vividly realistic...explores the subject with haunting emotional power." ( Playboy)

"A page-turner from beginning to end." ( Los Angeles Times)

"A gut-wrenching scenario...might well be Kellerman's finest." ( Booklist)

Love series, this one was slow.

I am a big fan of this series, but this book moved slow and was hard to really get into.

Long winded

This book probably could have been half the length and still been interesting. The storyline was good though, glad I sat through it.

Satisfying

Jonathan Kellerman is considerate to his readers. His characters (the good ones) please. The plot holds the reader’s interest. Kellerman has a fine narrator. Bravo👍

Weak effort by master storyteller

I usually enjoy Kellerman’s Alex Delaware novels. This one was profoundly disappointing. The story line often seemed buried under an avalanche of unnecessary descriptive detail that became mind numbing. If this had been my first of the Delaware novels it would have been my last. The plot plodded seemingly aimlessly and then took an unexpected and just plain weird turn near the end. No proper preparation was laid for the conclusion of the story.

The reader is not one of my favorites. It seems he often slips out of character (voice) when doing Sturgis, so Milo is inconsistent from place to place. Sometimes when there is back-and-forth dialogue between Milo and Alex it is hard to distinguish who is saying what.

My advice if you are considering your first Alex Delaware novel is that you look elsewhere. Most will not disappoint.

Private Eyes

Love the story, I never expected the ending by any means. The narrator is wonderful.

Not your average Delaware novel

I suppose Kellerman was still learning what readers wanted at the time he was writing this one. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't the typical murder, cop banter, and casting out wild suppositions between Milo and Alex. Normally, the victims aren't very fleshed-out and even though they get a pretty good understanding of them, they don't always understand the victim's psyche. That was a nice addition to this book, really getting to know the characters. Normally, I can tell from early which direction the book is going, but not with this one. I knew a few things, but there were plenty of twists and surprises.

This was the second I've listened to with this narrator, and while I've gotten used to Alexander Adams, he's still not my favorite. The way he pronounces certain words irritates me. Like putting a long I sound in "short-lived," it just didn't sit right with me. I could have chosen to go with the other Audible version of this book, but it was abridged, and I didn't want to sacrifice parts of the story just because of the narration.

love this book

The story is compelling and the narrator changes voices so I always know who is speaking. This is a great audio book.

OK

Good story. Too descriptive, gets tedious. Going on to next in series