Open Season is a recent addition to the Alex Delaware canon written by the prolific Jonathan Kellerman, and this is one of the better installments in recent years.
This case begins with a young woman who was drugged, killed, and abandoned at a hospital. Detective Milo Sturgis enlists the insights of his best friend, Dr. Alex Delaware. A trail has found its way to the doorstep of a predatory party seeker who is shot in his apartment. Alex and Milo find a string of similar murders where a sniper has been busy. It takes some skillful investigating, but an unusual connection has emerged among the victims, and a killer with a rather unique motivation has no plans to stop carrying out his ghastly executions.
Kellerman has been writing this series for about forty years and at times seems to be going stale, however this novel seems to have brought some new life into the exploits of Dr. Delaware. There is no real change in the dynamic between the main characters or the manner in which the plot infolds. I just found the clues to the identity of the killer and what was motivating him to be more captivating than I remember Kellerman creating in some time.
Kellerman often takes the more realistic approach to not introducing the culprit until much later in the story. I think that is partly why I still appreciate his works. Milo and Delaware don’t come up with these sudden moments of brilliant deductions. They just talk to people enough to unearth a true path to the solution of the crime. It gives an otherwise outlandish plot some sense of credibility.
Even if Kellerman can sometimes exasperate me with some of his plot repetitions, I still enjoy the series as a whole. My criticism of his recent works does little to dampen my overall affection for Kellerman and his characters.
Although there were plenty of familiar elements in this novel and no earth-shattering changes occurred to our dogged heroes, something did seem a little fresher in this particular entry.
Kellerman is pretty long in the tooth, so who knows how many more Delaware escapades are forthcoming, but Open Season helped ensure me to stay up to speed.
I think it’s time to get a little more retro in my crime novel reading. Nero Wolfe is testily waiting for clients to present their conundrums to he can unearth a solution and return to his orchids and gourmet meals in Rex Stout’s Three for the Chair.
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