Silent Partner

By: Jonathan Kellerman

Narrated by: Alexander Adams

Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

The best-selling author of When The Bough Breaks, Blood Test, and Over The Edge delivers the most stunning novel yet, featuring psychologist-detective Dr. Alex Delaware.

At a party for a controversial Los Angeles sex therapist, Alex encounters a face from his own past: Sharon Ransom, an exquisite, alluring lover who left him abruptly more than a decade earlier. Sharon now hints that she desperately needs help, but Alex evades her. The next day she is dead, an apparent suicide. Driven by guilt and sadness, Alex plunges into the maze of Sharon's life - a journey that will take him through the pleasure palaces of California's ultra-rich, into the dark closets of a family's disturbing past, and finally into the alleyways of the mind, where childhood terrors still hold sway.

Also available on BDD Audio Cassette.

©2003 Jonathan Kellerman (P)2012 Random House Audio

Critic Reviews

"A complex and haunting story of tangled personalities, deeply buried family secrets, and of violence lying thinly under the surface ... Hits the reader right between the eyes." ( Los Angeles Times Book Review)

Bad So Cal pronunciations

Narrator needs to learn how to pronounce street and place names in So Cal Very distracting.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great author and characters

Would you listen to Silent Partner again? Why?

No, I usually only go through a book once

Who was your favorite character and why?

Alex Delaware

Have you listened to any of Alexander Adams’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Any additional comments?

It was a little slow at times, but overall a great book

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

BORDERLINE

guess I am just spoiled. but struggled to finish this one. plot just went past my head and I had difficulty keeping track. dont get me wrong. it's still good writing.

Very characters

Excellent, excellent, excellent book! Nearing the middle and end I could not put it down because I was too busy trying to hurry up and find out how many heck did this happen and who did it, LOL

Prolonged, improbable, yet I listened

Each time I start a new Kellerman, I'm minutes from giving up on it. Yet, I always finish them, and am left with the same questions -- what did this really say about our protagonist or anyone else in the story? As complex and evolved as the characters seem to be, I'm never quite sure about them. The plot does not lack detail, but I find myself backing up to the portion I missed -- I do that a lot anyway, but in Kellerman's books, I'm very likely to miss more and perhaps to never figure it out. Yet I still hang in there. I keep thinking. I'll learn something new about the protagonist, his gay friend, his girlfriend the luthier and the social mores in general. I never quite break through though.

In this one, the temporary separation from Robin allows our hero to not re-engage with an old flame and to feel guilty nevertheless. Wonder what Robin did in the meantime?

There's twins, or perhaps triplets due to administration of some hormones, because why again? These twins may be Howard Hughes' or perhaps his partner's?

So sometimes we think there are twins, then perhaps triplets, and in the end, twins again? I confess to being unsure even of that resolution. One kills the other, or maybe she doesn't.

In the end, I can't figure out if its my inattention, over attention, or what that made this so difficult. As always, I wonder if I'll be back for more.

Antiquated/needs disclaimer: BPD are throw aways

What would have made Silent Partner better?

A heads up disclaimer that this is a very old book that stigmatizes and perpetuates throwing people with Borderline Personality Disorder (term and diagnosis no longer used) under the bus, to the curb, or just away.

Would you ever listen to anything by Jonathan Kellerman again?

No, tho I've already accrued quite a collection of JK books and have always enjoyed the mystery adventures with Alex and Milo, I won't be wasting my time or purchasing anymore. I'm not sure what Jonathan Kellerman's background is other than writer. Perhaps he is a pyschologist and should know better than to advocate its okay to throw anyone away but quite frankly, I no longer care to look.

Have you listened to any of Alexander Adams’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, one other time, think it was a Kellerman book as well. The reader/narrator is fine.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Silent Partner?

Oh, you know, the hateful, hurtful parts indicating BPD folks are worthless and your best bet is throwing them away.

Any additional comments?

If you or a loved one has ever been diagnosed the antiquated, no longer accepted or diagnosed BPD, avoid this book. You will only be hurt and appalled by Mr. Kellerman's hateful disdain. As I said previously, I've been a fan for years and have many other Alex and Milo mysteries in my collection, but they are newer. I believe this one was supposed to take place in 1987 and was released in 1989, however/whenever, this book needs some serious "fix in". I don't know if I'll ever listen to a Kellerman book again. I am shocked and sickened by "Silent Partner".

0 of 2 people found this review helpful