Click on image to enlarge.
|
The Murder Book [An Alex Delaware Novel] [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/Adobe]
eBook by Jonathan Kellerman
| |
Regular |
|
 |
|
Club |
| You Pay: |
$9.99 |
|
|
|
$8.49 |
| Micropay Rebate: |
5% |
|
|
|
5% |
| Cost After Rebate: |
$9.49 |
|
|
|
$8.07 |
| You Save: |
5.01% |
|
|
|
19.22% |
eBook Category: Suspense/Thriller/Mainstream
eBook Description:  In seventeen consecutive bestselling novels, Jonathan Kellerman has distinguished himself as the master of the psychological thriller. Now in Kellerman's most compelling and powerful novel yet, L.A. psychologist-detective Alex Delaware confronts a long-unsolved murder of unspeakable brutality--an ice-cold case whose resolution threatens his survival, and that of longtime friend, homicide detective, Milo Sturgis. The nightmare begins when Alex receives a strange package in the mail with no return address. Inside is an ornate album filled with gruesome crime scene photos--a homicide scrapbook entitled The Murder Book. Alex can find no reason for anyone to send him this compendium of death, but when Milo views the book, he is immediately shaken by one of the images: a young woman, tortured, strangled, and dumped near a freeway ramp. This was one of Milo's first cases as a rookie homicide cop: a vicious killing that he failed to solve, because just as he and his training partner began to make headway, the department closed them down. Being forced to abandon the young victim tormented Milo. But his fears prevented him from pursuing the truth, and over the years he managed to forget. Or so he thought. Now, two decades later, someone has chosen to stir up the past. As Alex and Milo set out to uncover what really happened twenty years ago, their every move is followed and their lives are placed in jeopardy. The relentless investigation reaches deep into L.A.'s nerve-centers of power and wealth-past and present. While peeling back layer after layer of ugly secrets, they discover that the murder of one forgotten girl has chilling ramifications that extend far beyond the tragic loss of a single life. A classic story of good and evil, sacrifice and sin, The Murder Book is a gripping page-turner that illuminates the darkest corridors of the human mind. It is a stunning tour de force.
eBook Publisher: Random House, Inc., Published: 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2002
This eBook is also available in the following bundle(s):
This eBook is part of the following series:
Available eBook Formats [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/Adobe - What's this?]: SECURE MOBIPOCKET FORMAT [598 KB], SECURE MICROSOFT READER FORMAT [427 KB] - Requires Microsoft Reader 2.1.1 for PCs, or Microsoft Reader 2.2.2 on Pocket PC 2002 handheld devices. Some older Pocket PCs can be upgraded. Learn More., SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT [456 KB], SECURE ADOBE READER 7 FORMAT [1.1 MB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [772 KB]
Words: 100000
Reading time: 285-400 min.
Secure Adobe: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Microsoft Reader ISBN, Adobe Acrobat Reader ISBN, MobiPocket Reader ISBN, eReader (recommended) ISBN: 9780345458643
 
CHAPTER 1 The day I got the murder book, I was still thinking about Paris. Red wine, bare trees, gray river, city of love. Everything that happened there. Now, this. Robin and I flew in to Charles de Gaulle airport on a murky Monday in January. The trip had been my idea of a surprise. I'd pulled it together in one manic night, booking tickets on Air France and a room at a small hotel on the outskirts of the Eighth arrondissement, packing a suitcase for two, speeding the 125 freeway miles to San Diego. Showing up at Robin's room at the Del Coronado just before midnight with a dozen coral roses and a voilà! grin. She came to the door wearing a white T-shirt and a hip-riding red sarong, auburn curls loose, chocolate eyes tired, no makeup. We embraced, then she pulled away and looked down at the suitcase. When I showed her the tickets, she turned her back and shielded me from her tears. Outside her window the night black ocean rolled, but this was no holiday on the beach. She'd left L.A. because I'd lied to her and put myself in danger. Listening to her cry now, I wondered if the damage was irreparable. I asked what was wrong. As if I had nothing to do with it. She said, "I'm just . . . surprised." We ordered room-service sandwiches, she closed the drapes, we made love. "Paris," she said, slipping into a hotel bathrobe. "I can't believe you did all this." She sat down, brushed her hair, then stood. Approached the bed, stood over me, touched me. She let the robe slither from her body, straddled me, shut her eyes, lowered a breast to my mouth. When she came the second time, she rolled away, went silent. I played with her hair and, as she fell asleep, the corners of her mouth lifted. Mona Lisa smile. In a couple of days, we'd be queuing up as robotically as any other tourists, straining for a glimpse of the real thing. She'd fled to San Diego because a high school chum lived there -- a thrice-married oral surgeon named Debra Dyer, whose current love interest was a banker from Mexico City. ("So many white teeth, Alex!") Francisco had suggested a day of shlock-shopping in Tijuana followed by an indeterminate stay at a leased beach house in Cabo San Lucas. Robin, feeling like a fifth wheel, had begged off, and called me, asking if I'd join her. She'd been nervous about it. Apologizing for abandoning me. I didn't see it that way, at all. Figured her for the injured party. I'd gotten myself in a bad situation because of poor planning. Blood had spilled and someone had died. Rationalizing the whole thing wasn't that tough: Innocent lives had been at stake, the good guys had won, I'd ended up on my feet. But as Robin roared away in her truck, I faced the truth: My misadventures had little to do with noble intentions, lots to do with a personality flaw. A long time ago, I'd chosen clinical psychology, the most sedentary of professions, telling myself that healing emotional wounds was how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. But it had been years since I'd conducted any long-term therapy. Not because, as I'd once let myself believe, I'd burned out on human misery. I had no problem with misery. My other life force-fed me gobs of misery. The truth was cold: Once upon a time I had been drawn to the humanity and the challenge of the talking cure, but sitting in the office, dividing hour after hour by three quarters, ingesting other people's problems, had come to bore me. In a sense, becoming a therapist had been a strange choice. I'd been a wild boy -- poor sleeper, restless, overactive, high pain threshold, inclined to risk-taking and injuries. I quieted down a bit when I discovered books but found the classroom a jail and raced through school in order to escape. After graduating high school at sixteen, I bought an old car with summer-job cash, ignored my mother's tears and my father's scowling vote of no-confidence, and left the plains of Missouri. Ostensibly for college, but really for the threat and promise of California. Molting like a snake. Needing something new. Novelty had always been my drug. I craved insomnia and menace punctuated by long stretches of solitude, puzzles that hurt my head, infusions of bad company and the delicious repellence of meeting up with the slimy things that coiled under psychic rocks. A racing heart jolted me happy. The kick start of adrenaline punching my chest made me feel alive. When life slowed down for too long, I grew hollow. But for circumstance, I might've dealt with it by jumping out of airplanes or scaling bare rocks. Or worse. Years ago, I'd met a homicide detective and that changed everything. Robin had put up with it for a long time. Now she'd had enough and, sooner rather than later, I'd have to make some kind of decision. She loved me. I know she did. Maybe that's why she made it easy for me. Copyright © 2002 by Jonathan Kellerman
|
)
