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It’s a story tailor-made for the nightly news: Dylan Meserve and Michaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting students, vanish on the way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the two of them are found in the remote mountains of Malibu -battered and terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor.
The details of the nightmarish event are shocking and brutal: The couple was carjacked at gunpoint by a masked assailant and subjected to a horrific regimen of confinement, starvation and assault.
But before long, doubts arise about the couple’s story, and as forensic details unfold, the abduction is exposed as a hoax. Charged as criminals themselves, the aspiring actors claim emotional problems, and the court orders psychological evaluation for both.
Michaela is examined by Alex Delaware, who finds that her claims of depression and stress ring true enough. But they don’t explain her lies, and Alex is certain that there are hidden layers in this sordid psychodrama that even he hasn’t been able to penetrate.
Nevertheless, the case is closed–only to be violently reopened when Michaela is savagely murdered. When the police look for Dylan, they find that he’s gone. Is he the killer or a victim himself? Casting their dragnet into the murkiest corners of L.A., Delaware and Sturgis unearth more questions than answers–including a host of eerily identical killings. What really happened to the couple who cried wolf? And what bizarre and brutal epidemic is infecting the city with terror, madness, and sudden, twisted death?
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Creators
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Publisher
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Awards
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Release date
March 28, 2006 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780739345863
- File size: 339004 KB
- Duration: 11:46:15
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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An overly complicated novel featuring detective psychiatrist Alex Delaware and his cop buddy, Milo Sturgis, gets muddied in detail and an annoying performance by a usually talented narrator. A young couple fakes an abduction that turns to murder. The story jumps back and forth through time and introduces a plethora of confusing characters. Normally, the Delaware stories are riveting and John Rubinstein is a joy to hear, but not this time. He's fine doing Alex and Milo, but everyone else is a caricature. A Jewish woman sounds stereotyped; the halting speech of a retarded man is painful. The book itself cries out for an abridgment. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine -
Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware mysteries are always fast paced and full of psychological angles. This one is true to form. While this production is abridged, without a direct comparison to the original, it's hard to tell what has been cut out. Scenes move seamlessly from one to another. John Rubinstein is solid as the narrator, but do all Southern Californians sound like New Yorkers? Rubinstein differentiates the main characters well, but he's weak on the minor ones, especially women. This is only a minor flaw, though, and doesn't detract from the overall work. Rubinstein is particularly effective at portraying one-half of telephone conversations and uses hesitations effectively in both the text and conversation. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
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March 27, 2006
In bestseller Kellerman's pulse-pounding 20th Alex Delaware novel (after 2005's Rage
), the Los Angeles psychologist looks into the murder of attractive 23-year-old Michaela Brand, an aspiring actress. Soon after Michaela and a fellow acting student, 24-year-old Dylan Meserve, achieve their 15 minutes of fame by staging their abduction, their hoax is exposed and Michaela turns up dead in circumstances reminiscent of her faked assault. Delaware joins forces with his sometimes official partner in crime, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, and together they pursue an investigative trail littered with corpses leading to an unconventional acting school and the family of the eccentric woman who runs it. While the murderer's identity may not be that surprising, the author's ability to convey the unrelenting sadness of his characters' lives and his deep psychological insights will satisfy those looking for more than mere thrills. (On sale Mar. 28)
Correction:
In the Q&A with Alice Quinn that ran in our Feb. 20 issue, the photo credit should have read Robert Falcetti.
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