Notes For August 9th, 2024
This Day In Literary History
On August 9th, 1949, the legendary American mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman was born in New York City. When he was nine years old, he began writing short stories. That same year, his family moved across the country to Los Angeles.
Kellerman had always been an avid reader; his fascination with creative writing led him to write prolifically from grade school through his college years. By the time he was doing his graduate work, he had written eight unpublished novels.
In college, Jonathan Kellerman studied psychology and determined to become a child psychologist. He did his post-graduate work at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, then opened a private practice. He also served as a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine.
He published his first scientific paper at the age of 22 and did his post graduate work designing and implementing psychotherapy for children with cancer. His program was the first ever to provide comprehensive emotional care to pediatric cancer patients and their families.
In his private practice, Kellerman strongly denounced the use of behavior modifying drugs like Ritalin on schoolchildren back when those medications were considered breakthrough drugs. He also opposed the use of mood enhancing drugs like antidepressants on kids.
When he married his wife Faye, she was a dental hygienist who had just gotten her DDS from dental school. She bore him four children. Their eldest child, Jesse Kellerman, is also a writer.
Faye Kellerman never did practice dentistry. Instead, she became a bestselling mystery writer like her husband. The Kellermans are the only married couple to hit the New York Times bestseller list at the same time for two separate novels.
Jonathan Kellerman would base his most famous character on himself. This hugely popular character would serve as the main character and narrator of numerous mystery novels.
Dr. Alex Delaware, a brilliant child psychologist, made his debut in Kellerman's classic first novel, When the Bough Breaks, which was published in 1985.
In his first outing, Dr. Delaware is a man who seemingly has it all; a successful practice, a loving girlfriend, a gorgeous home in Southern California, a luxury car, and a passion for playing and collecting guitars.
Then, he took on a tough, troubling case: treating a group of children who had been repeatedly molested at their day care center by the husband of the woman who ran the place. Delaware's treatment of his young patients proves successful.
Then one night, their molester breaks into Delaware's office and commits suicide. Shattered by the case and burned out, Delaware decides to retire. Only in his thirties, he already has more than enough money to retire comfortably.
So, Delaware retires and takes up the life of a beach bum. His girlfriend Robin tries in vain to help him deal with his depression. Then, eccentric LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis shows up to ask for his help in solving a vicious double murder.
Tough, burly, and slovenly, Sturgis is also highly intelligent, relentlessly dedicated, and the first openly gay homicide detective to serve in the Los Angeles Police Department - a position complicated by the virulent homophobia that runs rampant in the department.
The detective's latest case has him stumped. A prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Morton Hander, has been found brutally murdered, along with his lover - a former patient. Sturgis's only lead lies with Melody Quinn, a psychologically troubled little girl who may have witnessed the murders.
Milo asks Alex Delaware to become a police consultant and try to get Melody to talk about what she might have seen. Reluctant at first, Delaware agrees to examine the girl. As he and Sturgis plunge into the case, Delaware is shocked when he discovers a link to the case that nearly destroyed him.
The trail of the bizarre case leads Delaware to some of the richest, most powerful families in America - and a horrific, murderous conspiracy to prostitute mentally and physically handicapped children to evil, depraved psychopaths whose wealth and position place them above the law.
When the Bough Breaks won Jonathan Kellerman the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. So far, he has written over 36 Alex Delaware novels, with the doctor using his psychological expertise to help his best friend Detective Milo Sturgis solve bizarre and brutal crimes.
Kellerman's background as a psychologist gives his stories a strong sense of authenticity, despite the bizarre and horrific nature of the crimes Alex Delaware is tasked with helping to solve.
In Time Bomb (1990), a young woman opens fire on the grounds of an elementary school that two rival politicians are visiting because of some recent incidents of racist vandalism that occurred there. She is killed by the bodyguard of one of the politicians.
Refusing to believe that his daughter would hurt children, the girl's father asks Alex Delaware to conduct a psychological autopsy. The doctor concludes that the shooter wasn't targeting the children - she wanted to kill one of the politicians.
The intended victim is a known right wing extremist. Delaware and Detective Sturgis soon uncover a murderous neo-Nazi conspiracy to acquire political power and use it to create a Fourth Reich in America.
In Survival of the Fittest (1997), Dr. Delaware is asked to help solve the strange murder of a diplomat's daughter. The mildly retarded teenage girl was murdered in a deliberately gentle way to insure that she wouldn't suffer.
Soon, other children with disabilities are murdered in a similar way. Dr. Delaware's investigation leads him to Meta, a group of people with very high IQ's, a very strong belief in eugenics, and a psychopathic serial killer among their members.
In The Murder Book (2002), Dr. Delaware receives a mysterious package in the mail, sent by an anonymous person. It's a photo album labeled The Murder Book. It contains an elaborately assembled collection of gruesome crime scene photos of murder victims.
Delaware turns The Murder Book over to Detective Sturgis, who is shocked when he recognizes one of the victims - a young woman who had been tortured, murdered, and dumped near the freeway.
That was the very first homicide case Sturgis ever worked - a crime he was unable to solve. Soon, Dr. Delaware finds himself confronting evil beyond even his psychologist's understanding of the human mind.
In addition to his Alex Delaware novels, Jonathan Kellerman has written other novels including two in collaboration with his wife, Faye Kellerman, six novels in collaboration with his son, mystery writer Jesse Kellerman, children's books, and nonfiction books on subjects such as child psychology and vintage guitars.
His most recent Alex Delaware novel, The Ghost Orchid, was published in February of this year. It opens with a vicious double murder in Beverly Hills. The bodies of Gio Aggiunta, a handsome Italian playboy and shoe company heir, and his paramour and married neighbor, Meagin March, are found floating in the pool by the pool boy.
Meagin was nude, but not molested or sexually assaulted; she and Gio were shot while having an affair. Milo Sturgis suspects a hit, but calls in Alex Delaware, though he feels guilty doing it - Alex was seriously injured by the last psychopath they had hunted.
Alex insists on helping him with the case, and his psychological expertise comes in handy. Though the cuckolded husband is always the prime suspect in such cases, their female victim, Meagin March, proves to be a ghost. An identity changing chameleon, she'd been a prostitute before snaring her very wealthy husband.
As Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis try to piece together who Meagin March really was, they begin to realize that their killer is not the angry husband she betrayed, but a vengeful, inhumane psychopath from her troubled past - and he's not done killing...
Quote Of The Day
"That's what's so great about my job. I get paid to do what got me in trouble in grade school - space out and play with my imaginary friends. In terms of Isaac, when the time's right."
- Jonathan Kellerman
Vanguard Video
Today's video features Jonathan Kellerman discussing his most recent novel, The Ghost Orchid, on a 68-minute Poisoned Pen Bookstore live stream. Enjoy!
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