Description

Consulting psychologist Alex Delaware has a novel approach to crime-solving: he uses his training to unlock the secrets in the minds of the victims and jiggles the clues he finds there until the right scenario emerges. So when Alexs LAPD buddy Milo finds the hacked-up body of a woman psychologist named Claire Argent in an abandoned car trunkthe second such murder in eig Consulting psychologist Alex Delaware has a novel approach to crime-solving: he uses his training to unlock the secrets in the minds of the victims and jiggles the clues he finds there until the right scenario emerges. So when Alexs LAPD buddy Milo finds the hacked-up body of a woman psychologist named Claire Argent in an abandoned car trunkthe second such murder in eight monthsAlex heads for her place of employment: the Starkweather State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. One of Argents patients at Starkweather is Ardis Monster Peake, imprisoned for the unbelievably brutal murders of his mother and the family she worked for, including a small child and a baby. Theres at least one eerie similarity between the mutilation of their bodies and Argents: in all the bodies, the eyes were taken or destroyed. But Peake, diagnosed as schizophrenic and psychotic, is a well-behaved vegetable due to a steady diet of Thorazine, and he hasnt left the hospital since his incarceration 15 years before. How is it, then, that Claire Argents assistant, Heidi Ott, swears she heard Peake say, Dr. A. Bad eyes in a box soon after he hears only the bare fact of her death And why does Alex find Peake so empathetic, in spite of his violent past and chillingly vacant mind When other mutilated bodies turn up, Alex and Milo begin to suspect that the real monster is very much at large. Like Kellermans 12 previous Alex Delaware mysteries, Monster builds to a big, teeth-clenching bang and ends with some very satisfying surprises. Barrie Trinkle