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Read A Cold Heart (2003)

A Cold Heart (2003)

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Series
Rating
3.82 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0345452569 (ISBN13: 9780345452566)
Language
English
Publisher
ballantine books

A Cold Heart (2003) - Plot & Excerpts

Downloaded from Audible.comNarrator: John RubinsteinPublisher: Random House Audio, 2003Length: 11 hours and 57 min.Publisher's Summary"I've got a weird one, so naturally I thought of you," says Milo Sturgis, summoning his friend Alex to the trendy gallery where a promising young artist has been brutally garroted on the night of her first major showing. What makes it "a weird one" is the lack of any obvious motive, and the luridly careful staging of the murder scene - which immediately suggests to Alex not an impulsive crime of passion, but the meticulous and taunting modus operandi of a serial killer.Delaware's suspicion is borne out when he compares notes with Milo's associate, Petra Connor, and her new partner Eric Stahl. The Hollywood cops are investigating the vicious death of Baby Boy Lee, a noted blues guitarist, fatally stabbed after a late-night set at a local club. What links Baby Boy's murder with that of painter Juliet Kipper is the shadowy presence of an abrasive fanzine writer. This alias-shrouded critic's love-the-art/disdain-the-artist philosophy and his morbid fascination with the murders leads Alex and the detectives to suspect they're facing a new breed of celebrity stalker: one with a fetish for snuffing out rising stars.Tracking down the killer proves to be maddening, with the twisting trail leading from halfway houses to palatial mansions and to the last place Alex ever expected: the doorstep of his ex-lover Robin Castagna. With the rising of Robin's own creative star, her role assumes a chilling new importance - as a prime target for the psychopath who's made cold-blooded murder his chosen art form.

I'm sometimes asked who are some author's who have influenced my writing. I always had a stock answer: Stephen King, simply because he's the King and is one of the best writers of the last thirty years. And Scott Smith, because his A Simple Plan was one of the inspirations for White Lies (a regular person in a simple situation that snowballs out of control).Now I will likely add Kellerman to that list, and largely because of his writing style. There might be better writers out there, but I haven't read them. The best way to describe Kellerman's style is: confident. The way he can twist a sentence from mundane to special, and the frequency with which he does it, is pretty damn impressive.Something as simple as this (describing a waitress):"...chopped red hair and a sliver of torso, glasses riding her nose..."And there's the humor too, which comes so naturally, and isn't forced like, say, Koontz's newer stuff:"We traded Y-chromosome chuckles" or, in regard to his buddy's massive sandwich, "It was so big it required a building permit"All in all, A Cold Heart is typical Jonathan Kellerman, a well-plotted, well-written and well-enjoyed journey into the world of investigative psychology. I enjoyed this one, but from some of the reviews I've read, some people didn't. If you've never read a Kellerman, I suggested browsing a few titles and choosing one that sounds interesting to you.

What do You think about A Cold Heart (2003)?

“The witness remembers it like this:…”The LAPD are perplexed when a middle-aged blues guitarist and a promising young artist with a druggy past are murdered in quick succession. Petra Conner, reserved detective with a recent break-up, and Alex Delaware, ex-police psychologist, are both intrigued by the cases and feel duty-bound to follow them up.This had the potential to be a great thriller – two sort-of linked cases, both of which are pretty cold, with tenacious investigators, and all sorts of crazy characters lurking on the sidelines. The main characters are strong, tough people with recent personal relationship issues but no bizarre behaviour which can be so limiting in police procedurals.HOWEVER.The two main characters (ignoring Milo, who according the blurb is the lynchpin but I didn’t even know who he was when I read the blurb again to do this review) are so similar, with such similar recent relationship troubles, and both perspectives are told in the first person singular, that I actually got the characters mixed up and was really confused when they seemed to be hanging out with people they didn’t know.Ergo – narrative weakness. And when the plot hadn’t grabbed me by page 100 enough to overcome the extremely confusing double/same character issue, on the DNF list it went.
—Yvann S

There is a lot to like about this novel for fans of Kellerman's Alex Delaware series. We see both Milo Sturgis and Petra Connor work the case. Also, we see Petra, who usually works solo, given a partner who has major quirks. Kellerman does a great job of shading in just enough of his backstory to keep the reader interested without disrupting the plot.So why did I only give it three stars? It had to do with the tricky business of dropping clues. Most of the mystery writers that I enjoy give just enough of a hint when the bad guy is introduced that I think "this might possibly be the guy." Sometimes I have no idea at all during the introduction, and that is fine as long as some hint is dropped before the climax, even if it is disguised in a very clever manner. My problem with A Cold Heart was that the clue at the introduction was too revealing. I had one of those Adrian Monk "That's the guy" moments where the whodunit element was absolutely over. As a fan of Alex, Milo, and Petra I still enjoyed the remainder of the book, but had to do so in the context of a police procedural rather than a whodunit.
—RJ

A few years ago, I got tired of Dr. Alex Delaware to say nothing of author, Jonathan Kellerman and his increasingly weird plots. I must say, though, with this novel, they are both back.The story covers the pursuit of a serial killer who appears to be murdering people because he or she is jealous of their rising success. A series of supposedly unrelated killings are eventually identified as being the probable work of one person. Kellerman uses an interesting approach by following three people as they work to solve the case. Dr. Alex Delaware, presented in the first person and the core narrator, Petra Connor, a homicide detective and Milo Sturgis, a cold case detective and Delaware's usual sidekick. By dividing the story three ways, Kellerman is able to put aside the restrictions of Delaware's first person narration and broaden the story in interesting ways. It made the plot more enticing and kept the reader guessing as the three major characters collected information without them or us knowing how important any of it was.Kellerman brings in a cast of interesting supporting characters as usual. Using Los Angeles as a backdrop gives the author an opportunity to introduce all sorts of weirdos, particularly Detective Eric Stahl, an ex-special forces member assigned to be Connor's partner. We also get to meet a number of underground Hollywood losers, all of whom contribute to the unfolding plot.The story's ending is satisfying without being too neat. I'm glad I picked this up to read.
—Ed

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