編輯推薦
Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor takes center stage in bestseller Kellerman's elaborate, suspenseful, albeit improbable, thriller. Connor, who assisted Kellerman's main series detective, psychologist Alex Delaware, in 2003's A Cold Heart, proves an engaging protagonist, fully capable of carrying a story on her own. She's investigating a seemingly random drive-by shooting that claimed four teenage victims when a precocious 22-year-old graduate student intern, Isaac Gomez, presents her with evidence that a serial killer has struck on the same day, June 28, every year for the past six years. Though his proof relies entirely on a statistical analysis he's performed, his unquestioned brilliance prompts Connor to do a little extracurricular digging that turns up suggestive clues supporting Gomez's theory. Meanwhile, after doggedly pursuing even the slightest lead in the drive-by shooting case, Connor suspects that one of the victims, perhaps the one who wasn't claimed by any next-of-kin, was deliberately targeted. While Connor finds the socially immature Gomez to be a challenging assistant, he displays considerable cool in the climactic showdown with the June 28 killer. Despite a last minute plot twist that comes out of left field, this is vintage Kellerman, sure to please his legions of fans.
內容簡介
Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor has helped psychologist Alex Delaware crack tough cases in the past. And in Jonathan Kellerman's New York Times bestseller Billy Straight she took the lead in the desperate hunt for a teenage runaway stalked by a vengeful murderer. Now the complex and wryly compassionate Petra is once again at the center of the action, in a novel of cunning twists and page-turning suspense.
Lifeless bodies sprawl in a dance-club parking lot after a brutal L.A. drive-by. Of the four seemingly random victims, one stands out: a girl with pink shoes who cannot be identified–and who, days later, remains a Jane Doe. With zero leads and no apparent motive, it's another case destined for the cold file–until Petra decides to follow her instincts and descends into a world of traveling grifters and bloodthirsty killers, pursuing a possible eyewitness whose life is in mortal danger.
Finding her elusive quarry–alive–isn't all Petra has on her plate: departmental politics threatens to sabotage her case, and her personal life isn't doing much better. If all that wasn't enough, Isaac Gomez, a whiz-kid grad student researching homicide statistics at the station house, is convinced he's stumbled upon a bizarre connection between several unsolved murders. The victims had nothing in common, yet each died by the same method, on the same date–a date that's rapidly approaching again. And that leaves Petra with little time to unravel the twisted logic of a cunning predator who's evaded detection for years–and whose terrible hour is once more at hand.
"Why is it so hard to put down a Kellerman thriller?" asks Publishers Weekly. "It's simple: the nonstop action leaves you breathless; the plot twists keep you guessing; the themes...are provocative." Those in need of still further proof that "Kellerman has shaped the psychological mystery novel into an art form"(Los Angeles Times Book Review) need look no further than Twisted.
作者簡介
Jonathan Kellerman is one of the world's most popular authors. He has brought his expertise as a child psychologist to numerous bestselling tales of suspense (which have been translated into two dozen languages), including thirteen previous Alex Delaware novels; The Butcher's Theater, a story of serial killing in Jerusalem; and Billy Straight, featuring Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor. He is also the author of numerous essays, short stories, and scientific articles, two children's books, and three volumes of psychology, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. He and his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, have four children.
精彩書評
Following her debut as Milo Sturgi's fellow officer in the Delaware/Sturgis mystery A Cold Heart (2003), L.A. Detective Petra Connor emerges on her own. Unfortunately, if Kellerman is testing the waters for a new series character, Petra, though tough enough and with the usual screwed-up love life, is nothing special. The best thing here is 22-year-old Isaac Gomez, a nerdy whiz kid who is investigating patterns in unsolved L.A. homicides for his doctoral dissertation. Although Petra is supposed to be working on the death of an unidentified teen in a drive-by shooting, when Isaac confronts her with several cold cases that have compelling links, she can't help but feel they deserve some attention, too. While Petra does most of the footwork, Isaac pulls up the background on his laptop and makes a few trips to the library, where an unusually randy librarian helps him out in both the physical and intellectual senses. The idea of a prodigy torn between his hardworking family and the excitement of police work is what supplies the energy here. Perhaps Kellerman should consider a series based on Isaac rather than Petra.
——Stephanie Zvirin
"Grabs the reader's attention and never lets go."
——Associated Press
"[Kellerman] keeps the creepiness coming until the big-twist finish."
——People
"Turn the page and you're hooked."
——The New York Times Book Review
精彩書摘
CHAPTER 1
May brought azure skies and California optimism to Hollywood. Petra Connor worked nights and slept through the blue. She had her own reason to be cheerful: solving two whodunit murders.
The first was a dead body at a wedding. The Ito-Park wedding, main ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel, Japanese-American bride, Korean-American groom, a couple of law students who'd met at the U. Her father, a Glendale-born surgeon; his, an immigrant appliance dealer, barely able to speak English. Petra wondered about culture clash.
The body was one of the bride's cousins, a thirty-two-year-old CPA named Baldwin Yoshimura, found midway through the reception, in an unlocked stall of the hotel men's room, his neck twisted so hard, he looked like something out of The Exorcist. It took strong hands to do that, the coroner pronounced, but that was where the medical wisdom terminated.
Petra, working with no partner once again, talked to every friend and relative and finally unearthed the fact that Baldwin Yoshimura had been a serious lothario who'd made no distinction between married and unmarried conquests. As she continued to probe, she encountered nervous glances on the bride's side. Finally, a third cousin named Wendy Sakura blurted out the truth: Baldwin had been fooling with his brother Darwin's wife. The slut.
Darwin, a relative black sheep for this highly educated clan, was a martial arts instructor who worked at a studio in Woodland Hills. Petra forced herself to wake up during daylight, dropped in at the dojo, watched him put an advanced judo class through its paces. Stocky little guy, shaved head, pleasant demeanor. When the class was over, he approached Petra, arms extended for cuffing, saying, "I did it. Arrest me."
Back at the station, he refused a lawyer, couldn't wait to spill: Suspicious for some time, he'd followed his wife and his brother as they left the wedding and entered an unused banquet room. After passing behind a partition, said wife gave said sib enthusiastic head. Darwin allowed her to finish, waited until Baldwin went to the john, confronted his brother, did the deed.
"What about your wife?"said Petra.
"What about her?"
"You didn't hurt her."
"She's a woman,"said Darwin Yoshimura. "She's weak. Baldwin should've known better."
The second whodunit started off as bloodstains in Los Feliz and ended up with d.b. out in Angeles Crest National Forest. This victim was a grocer named Bedros Kashigian. The blood was found in the parking lot behind his market on Edgemont. Kashigian and his five-year-old Cadillac were missing.
Two days later, forest rangers found the Caddy pulled to the side of the road in the forest, Kashigian's body slumped behind the wheel. Dried blood had streamed out of his left ear, run onto his face and shirt, but no obvious wounds. Maggot analysis said he'd been dead the entire two days, or close to it. Meaning, instead of driving home from work, he'd made his way thirty miles east. Or had been taken there.
As far as Petra could tell, the grocer was a solid citizen, married, three kids, nice house, no outstanding debts. But a solid week of investigating Kashigian's activities gave rise to the fact that he'd been involved in a brawl two days before his disappearance.
Barroom melee at a place on Alvarado. Latino clientele, but Kashigian had a thing for one of the Salvadoran waitre
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