Delaware Mysteries

Twenty-one-month-old Cassie Jones is bright, energetic, the picture of health. Yet her parents rush her to the emergency room night after night with medical symptoms no doctor can explain. Cassie's parents seem sympathetic and deeply concerned. Her favorite nurse is a model of devotion. Yet when child psychologist Alex Delaware is called in to investigate, instinct tells him that one of them may be a monster.

"Been a while since I had me a nice little whodunit," homicide detective Milo Sturgis tells Alex Delaware. But there's definitely nothing nice about the brutal tableau behind the yellow crime-scene tape. On a lonely lover's lane in the hills of Los Angeles, a young couple lies murdered in a car. Each bears a single gunshot wound to the head.

Lauren Teague is a beautiful, defiant, borderline-delinquent teenager when her parents bring her to Alex Delaware's office. But for all Alex's skill and effort, Lauren resists—angrily, provocatively. Reluctantly, the psychologist chalks Lauren up as one of the inevitable failures of a challenging profession. But years later, when Alex encounters Lauren as a stag party's featured entertainment, both doctor and patient are stricken with shame.

It's a story tailor-made for the nightly news: Dylan Meserve and Michaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting students, vanish on the way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the two of them are found in the remote mountains of Malibu, battered and terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor.

Philadelphia. Marsha O’Shea is eager to reclaim her mojo. So when the dedicated FBI agent receives intel on a Russian gangster consolidating power throughout the city, she digs deep into covert plans threatening to fill the streets with bullet-ridden terror. But she’s devastated when her investigation leads to the torturous death of a crime-beat reporter with evidence.

The City of Angels has more than its share of psychopaths, and no one recognizes that more acutely than the brilliant psychologist and police consultant Dr. Alex Delaware. Despite that, Constance Sykes, a sophisticated, successful physician, hardly seems like someone Alex needs to fear. Then, at the behest of the court, he becomes embroiled in a bizarre child custody dispute initiated by Connie against her sister and begins to realize that there is much about the siblings he has failed to comprehend.

"Been a while since I had me a nice little whodunit," homicide detective Milo Sturgis tells Alex Delaware. But there's definitely nothing nice about the brutal tableau behind the yellow crime-scene tape. On a lonely lover's lane in the hills of Los Angeles, a young couple lies murdered in a car. Each bears a single gunshot wound to the head.

Twelve-year-old Billy Straight - precocious, heartbreakingly perceptive, relentlessly moral - has fled the chaos and abuse of his life at home and is fighting to survive on L.A.'s meanest streets. All alone, Billy has fashioned a precarious existence for himself, using principled tricks to nourish his body and his mind. Late one night he watches from his hiding place as a man viciously butchers a woman. Billy becomes the center of terrifying attention - from the media, from violent bounty hunters, and from the murderer himself.

A series of horrifying events occur in quick succession in the same upscale L.A. neighborhood. A backyard renovation unearths an infant’s body, buried 60 years ago. And soon thereafter in a nearby park, another disturbingly bizarre discovery is made not far from the body of a young woman shot in the head. Helping LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis to link these eerie incidents is brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware. But even the good doctor’s vast experience with matters both clinical and criminal might not be enough to cut down to the bone of this chilling case - and draw out the disturbing truth.

Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor has helped psychologist Alex Delaware crack tough cases in the past. And in Jonathan Kellerman's New York Times best seller Billy Straight, she took the lead in the desperate hunt for a teenage runaway stalked by a vengeful murderer. Now the complex and wryly compassionate Petra is once again at the center of the action, in a novel of cunning twists and page-turning suspense.

Jonathan Kellerman has gained a loyal legion of fans with his best selling series of thrillers featuring child psychologist Alex Delaware. In When the Bough Breaks - the novel that started it all - Delaware is irresistably drawn to the case of a terrified child who is the only witness in a horrific double murder.

When the slightly retarded 15-year-old daughter of a diplomat is murdered in cold blood on school field trip in the Santa Monica Mountains, her father adamantly denies the possibility of a political motive. The Los Angeles Police Department's Detective Milo Sturgis and his longtime friend, psychologist Alex Delaware, pose the question: Why?

"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.

It is into the mist-shrouded heart of this forbidden, mountainous realm that our plucky and intrepid heroes, Jasper Dash: Boy Technonaut and his friends Lily Gefelty and Katie Mulligan, must journey to unravel a terrible mystery. Come along on a tale of grand adventure that includes in its pages: Lost cities! Tentacles! Monks! Dinosaurs! Gangsters! Cheap suits! Eye doctors! And, of course, the fabled curse of the jaguar!

Lauren Teague är en utmanande och stökig tonårsflicka vars föräldrar tar kontakt med psykologen Alex Delaware för att söka hjälp åt sin dotter. Flera år senare korsas deras vägar igen, då Lauren uppträder som strippa på en svensexa där Alex Delaware är med. En kort tid därpå hittas Laurens döda kropp på en bakgata - hon har blivit hänsynslöst avrättad med flera pistolskott. Det visar sig att Lauren har försörjt sig som prostituerad för att få råd med universitetsstudierna i psykologi.

Polismannen Nolan Dahl går in på ett kafé, stoppar pistolen i munnen och trycker av. Hans syster Helena chockas svårt och blir remitterad till psykolog Alex Delaware, som försöker få ihop en rättvisande bild av Nolan och ett svar på frågan varför han sköt sig. Strax därefter hittas två handikappade barn mördade med kort mellanrum. Kommissarie Milo Sturgis tar sin vän Alex Delaware till hjälp i utredningen och snart står det klart att någon dödar utifrån egna elitistiska värderingar - tar liv som inte är värda att leva. Men vem är den skoningslöse mördaren?

Doktor Alex Delaware tar egentligen inte emot några nya patienter, men den unga Lucy Lowell är ett undantag. Efter att ha suttit i juryn vid den uppmärksammade rättegången mot en seriemördare har hon drabbats av en återkommande mardröm: ett ensamt barn som mitt i natten, ute i skogen, bevittnar ett fruktansvärt brott. Är det kanske minnen från hennes egen barndom som sakta börjar komma upp till ytan? Minnen av ett tidigare mord... En rafflande psykologisk spänningsroman där dåtid och nutid vävs samman på ett ödesmättat sätt.

En ung man med skådespelardrömmar hittas död i bagageluckan på en bil, sågad mitt itu. Några månader senare påträffas en ung kvinnlig psykolog mördad och stympad. Morden har en hel del gemensamma nämnare så polisen utgår från att det är samma gärningsman. Psykolog Alex Delaware och hans vän kommissarie Milo Sturgis får i uppdrag att undersöka illdåden. De dras in i en virvel av familjetragedier, hämnd och manipulationer. Och deras slutgiltiga upptäckt ger en helt ny och skrämmande innebörd åt begreppet monster.

Den radikala professorn Hope Devane hittas brutalt knivmördad utanför sitt hem. Hon var en stridbar debattör i feministiska frågor och författare till en bästsäljande bok där hon tydligt uttryckte sitt förakt för män. Polisen hittar inga som helst ledtrådar och efter några månaders resultatlöst arbete kontaktar man psykologen Alex Delaware för hjälp. Det visar sig snart att Hope var en kvinna med en hel del hemligheter, både privat och yrkesmässigt.

George and Gracie begin their adventure in Dover, Delaware 1776. The kids are surprised to discover that one of them changes into an animal every time they travel, and this time Gracie is a horse. All the twins want to do is return a pair of antique school desks and search for their parents. But instead they find themselves in the middle of the American Revolution and end up helping Caesar Rodney make his famous ride into Philadelphia to vote “yes” for the Declaration of Independence. Crowe lands in Delaware, too, and he plans to take the time machine - with George and Gracie inside!