Jonathan Kellerman began the Alex Delaware series in 1985 with the 29th book in the series scheduled for publication in early 2014. This review is being written in January 2014. I have a bookshelf of Alex Delaware books as I went on a used book buying binge after I first discovered Kellerman. I read Monster about a year ago. It has taken me a while to get back to him.I am reading a couple of “serious” books but began casting around for a book that might be a page turner for me, something that I just wouldn’t want to put down until I finished it. The first Alex Delaware book that I read was thirteen in the series. That was just the book I happened to have. But I found this Omnibus book of the first two books in the series that was published in Great Britain (complete with British spelling). Probably got it cheap through an online used book dealer. Occasionally I notice that getting the first book in a series is not so easy since first books seem to be in some demand. Anyway, I lucked out in finding this British Omnibus and here I am finally getting to it.The series starts out with an introduction of the background of the main characters, Alex and Milo. I immediately found both characters quite likeable. Both are in their thirties. Milo is gay, a facet of the novel that I find attractive. Alex is a child psychologist who found himself both financially well off and burned out at a young age. Milo is a Los Angeles homicide detective. They come together professionally on a murder case and become friends, evidently for the series – but time and publication will tell the story. But, suffice it to say, that the story grabs me and pulls me in. My positive first contact with my first book is reinforced. Just what I need: another series! Well, I am just about to finish the Sara Paretsky V.I. Warshawski series, am approaching the end of the Andrew Vachss Burke series and am well into several others. I must put on blinders to other “must read” books and stick to the many that I already have sitting on my bulging book shelves. Alibris.com is helping me resist more bargain online used books by withdrawing the lure of their dollar coupon. Thank you for that!It’s hard for me not to be aware that a book I am reading is almost thirty years old. That means the character Alex who was in his thirties then is now in his sixties. Like me. Then it comes to me that I could be Alex and it is both unnerving and thrilling. Our author, Jonathan Kellerman, is three years younger than I am. I wonder what he and his characters are like in the present tense, in January 2014, and I want to read his most recent book and then go back to the beginning of the series. I check and find that I have book number twenty-six in the series on my shelf. This means that when I finish this first book in the series I can fast forward to pretty close to present time, 2010. All of a sudden I have a plan of action that seems pretty exciting to me. Starting an old but still ongoing series has some potential excitement. Kind of like having a time machine! In reading a series I have always waited patiently to catch up, to get to the end. So this is a different approach. It’s like being in control and ignoring the rules! What a concept!The mid 1980s means no computers, no cell phones, the obvious. But When the Bough Breaks is also complete with a reference to the anti-nuclear (power and weapons) movement and a glimpse of a Pac Man game. The 1980s contained some meaningful events for me so there was some enjoyment to find myself back in those days.You can tell Alex Delaware is trained to know how to get people to talk – his psychologist persona plays a major role in the book. He can (and does) get the bad guys chatting freely to help tie up the loose ends and the stray bodies. To me, it actually seemed like one of the weak points of the book: too much bad guy blabbing to fill in the details to seem realistic.Like many first books in a series, When the Bough Breaks is far and away the most read and reviewed. It also has the highest rating of any of its cohorts. Since we know the series has become most successful and carries on to this current day, the perceived quality of the first story makes sense. It is a good one, as the reviewers will tell you, leading to many highlights in the early issues of the series. Some feel the quality drops off somewhat later in the series.The fact that Alex Delaware is coming up on thirty mostly successful years is impressive. It seems that I could be still reading his adventures for many years into the future even if the extension of the series winds down as Alex ages into an old man. I have many unread books to go even if the series comes to its inevitable conclusion. I am curious to see how Alex moves into the twenty-first century. As I have already mentioned, I expect to fast forward into one of the later books just to get a curiosity-satisfying look into the future. Since book number two in the series is included in the Omnibus I am reading, I will likely take in that one before moving on with warp speed.I am giving this book 3 ½ stars rounded up to four because it definitely kept me tuned in and turning the pages. It wrapped up all the details with all the really bad guys dead, appealing but not very realistic. All in all, I was required to suspend too much disbelief to rate the book much higher. There was enough unlikeliness to keep things exciting (including the car chase) but wholely improbable. But I am going to move on to book two in the series wondering how many more near-death encounters Alex will encounter in the coming years. I already know that he evidently sticks with the same girlfriend for all those thrill-packed years, something amazing for the genre. Way to go, Alex. Loyal and multi-lived and some pretty interesting, psychological writing. What more could we ask? The books of the “future” are already written and published. Alex and Milo carry on!
I know this is an oldie, and we cannot judge it by Kellerman's recent work, but really, it was a little too preposterous. ICK ALERT: There are scenes that describe graphic child sexual abuse here. There are words/phrases that would be unspeakable in today's sensitive times. But we cannot slight JK for that -- that was then and this is now.No, my complaints are about the way the story unfolds. First there is some detective work that combines Milo & Alex, then Milo disappears and Alex is a psychologist, detective, and near-mercenary. There are some nice homey scenes between Milo and Alex and their respective amours, but not enough of them.At any rate, the bad guys are rounded up and the most hated of them have stories to tell; long, stories, told in retrospect, as if it justified their adult behavior.Alex treks to other states, gets in fights, shoots, captures and threatens people until the truth comes out. When it does, all the truths link up into a somewhat surprising outcome. I am glad that JK decided to take the weapons away from Alex in his later, more mature books. I know it was the launch of the series, so for me, having read all the subsequent books, this one lacks the cohesiveness and logic of the best and most modern of the Alex/Milo canon. I would not recommend this book, however, because of the graphic descriptions of child sexual abuse. I would feel responsible to someone who read it on my recommendation and encountered this content. I would not recommend it to anyone who loves the Milo/Alex pairings because this one does not illustrate their relationship as we have come to expect.For a first time reader of JK, it is always best to begin a series at the beginning, and this one, because of some of the content, might turn someone away.I had to check to be sure, but there is a movie (1994) of the same title, which seems to include some aspects of this plot, though it doesn't seem an exact rendering.
What do You think about When The Bough Breaks (2003)?
This book helped me better understand why white dudes are fighting so hard to keep everyone else from gaining any power. They had it SO GOOD. Every single "other" wasn't just assumed to be less than, they actually were! Every single way in which you differed from the straight white guy was a way in which you were inferior, and everyone acknowledged it! They lived like kings!(I read it because the mystery was well-paced and -plotted, but it sure pissed me off. What a bunch of fuckfaces we've been.)
—Meave
Dr. Alex Delaware is a child psychologist who has seen enough violence and evil done to children to burn him out and break him down at the age of thirty-three. Now retired, he has plenty of money to live on while he ponders the question of what to do with his life. That is until his friend, a police detective, Milo Sturgis asks him for help on his latest case.Alex’s interest is piqued by the case, but doesn’t plan to get overly involved, just help out. Then he met Melody Quinn, the seven-year-old, lone witness to the double murder. She and her mother live in the same apartment building as the psychiatrist and his girlfriend that were murdered and she is the only one that can help with this case now as Milo has no other leads.As he gets Melody to trust him and open up, Alex realizes there is more to this case than just a double murder. He digs deeper and deeper until he opens the door to secrets that several ‘well to do’ people would rather keep closed…and would do anything to keep it that way.Intense, traumatic, and suspenseful, this book will keep you on the edge of your seat.Reviewed by Ashley Wintters for Suspense Magazine
—Ashley Dawn
This is the first book in the Alex Delaware series. I went back to the beginning here, after having received and read a couple of the later books. (If you've read some of my other reviews, you'll notice that this is a trend with me).Jonathan Kellerman must have taken a couple of classes at the Kathy Reichs School of Unbelievable Coincidences before coming up with a couple of the plot twists in this one. And the child abuse ring is kind of a tired trope. But overall, this one wasn't awful. It just wasn't as taut as the later Alex Delaware thrillers I read. FWIW, I'd give it a two-and-a-half stars if I could.
—Dennis D.
