Cover of THE MURDERER’S DAUGHTER; photo courtesy of Ballantine Books
THE MURDERER’S DAUGHTER by Jonathan Kellerman
Jonathan Kellerman is world renowned for his excellent mysteries concerning psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware. This time out, however, he writes his new novel about another psychologist, Dr. Grace Blades. She also gets caught up in a mystery, and the solving of the crime plays out over the course of the book. A lot of Grace’s history is also on display. This makes for an interesting novel but not a compelling one.
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In the pages of WHERE THE SOULS GO you meet AzLeigh, Grace Jean, Pearl and Annie Todd. AzLeigh is the mother of Grace Jean and Pearl, and Annie Todd is Grace Jean’s daughter. Each has a story to tell of hardship, passion and promise. And in each of these stories the men with whom they are involved are merely side characters. The women dominate the book.
Grace Blades was born to two losers. They drink, use drugs, have no ambition, and are physically and mentally abusive. All Grace has going for her is a brilliant mind and an ability to adjust and cope. She has to do this for most of her formative years. Eventually she grows up and becomes a Psychologist, and a very successful one at that. Her life becomes pretty much what she wants it to be.
That all changes when a new patient of hers is murdered. Grace is puzzled by this murder and wonders what the reason for it was. Her confusion grows more pronounced when she realizes that she is the murderer’s next target. Instead of letting the police handle it Grace decides to do some investigating on her own. She secures some weapons to protect herself, but her strongest weapon is her mind.
Reading about Grace’s childhood and then being caught up in a murder mystery will hold the readers’ attention, no doubt about that. Still it is not a book that you can’t put down and the reason for this is mainly that Grace is not an engrossing heroine. She is detached from most of her emotions and comes across as coldly calculating.
Her childhood has placed these limitations on her personality development and the reader accepts that as being what it is. Still this remoteness keeps the reader at arm’s length. You want to care about Grace but she is determined not to let you – and she succeeds. Even when she is in the most dire of situations you don’t have the concern you want to have. If Kellerman wanted to make her complex, which clearly was his intent, he succeeded too well.
Kellerman is an author who can create complex and unique characters, as well as complex and unique situations. Many times in the past this has worked very successfully for him. It doesn’t work quite as well with this new character and her problems. It isn’t an unsuccessful story; it just isn’t up to his usual entertainment level.
THE MURDERER’S DAUGHTER is published by Ballantine Books. It contains 384 pages and sells for $28.00.
