Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman

The Children's Hospital
Speaking improvements

Mega-best-selling Kellerman delivers another psychological suspense tale starring shrink hero Alex Delaware. While the Delaware novels are wildly popular, this one, at least, gets by only on plot. The characters are sketchily drawn, except for Delaware's new dog, who receives far more intensive (and ridiculous) development than any human in the book. Kellerman also takes the shortcut of having his characters deliver plot details and provide background motivations in artificial dialogue that should have been left to an omniscient narrator. But Kellerman does have a strong plot going for him (once we've waded through excessive descriptions of meals and interiors). The story centers on a young woman, whom Delaware treated as a child and who returns to tell the psychologist of the deathbed confession of her aunt and adopted mother--a woman whom Alex remembers as a heroically capable mother and nurse. The recently deceased woman allegedly told her niece that she had killed someone. The crux of the mystery is whether there was a murder at all, or whether it was the medication talking, or guilt over a patient's death. Delaware and his sidekick, detective pal Milo Sturgis, follow the tangled trail to a surprising conclusion. Good story unfairly weighed down by bad dialogue and stick characterizations. Kellerman's enormous fan base, however, will overlook the novel's flaws the way we excuse our loved ones' weaknesses. Connie Fletcher
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