Gone
An Alex Delaware Mystery
Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books 2007
Paperback 480 pages
Gone, the latest Jonathan Kellerman mystery novel is a page turner only because you always want to skip a few pages and get it over with. This novel is most definitely a letdown. Kellerman and Alex Delaware are obviously spinning their wheels here and it is not an interesting spectacle at all. Gone is basically a mystery in search of a criminal and is as bad as The Web with even less energy.
Gone begins with a couple of young wannabe actors staging a kidnapping to get their fifteen minutes of fame. They are found out and the girl ends up dead. Detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware try to solve this crime and end up with a few more bodies and a whole lot of potential suspects. The problem with his particular Jonathan Kellerman mystery is the reader does not really care.
Plot wise, Gone is Sturgis or Delaware interview potential witnesses or suspects, have a talk over the phone or at a restaurant where Sturgis eats a whole lot, end up figuring out they have no idea what is going on, interview more witnesses or suspects, have some more food, and figure out they still have no clue.
Add to this a secondary plot about a shrink who molested his patients and goes after Delaware for validating their case, the return of Robin in Delaware’s love life -which itself is getting tedious– and the return of the other lady in the shrink’s life in a series of who cares scenes.
Gone pretty much reads like Jonathan Kellerman had an outline for a mystery and then went on autopilot. It is beyond formulaic. Just when you are about to throw this book across the room Kellerman finally gets around to the solve and a pitiful one at that. The last chapter is just background fluff
This 20th entry in the Delaware series most definitely belongs in the wait until you can get a second-hand copy department and even then it will have been too expensive.
Gone
An Alex Delaware Mystery
Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books 2007
Paperback 480 pages
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