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.

After That, the Dark is quite the compelling addition to the Cameron Winter mystery series penned by Andrew Klavan. This is the fifth novel in the series and was released late last year.

Things are looking up for the former assassin and current English professor, Cameron Winter. The ongoing depression that sent him to therapy some time before seems to have lifted. He is falling in love with a woman who seems to really want to be with him. Of course, that doesn’t mean that dangerous men have decided to let the good professor live in peace. Cameron’s girlfriend, Gwendolyn Lord, tells him of a locked room mystery in which a rather unconventional murder suspect was himself dispatched by an unusual projectile. Cameron Winter decides to make a few inquiries and learns that the man who was killed in Oklahoma had inexplicably murdered and child. Winter also learns that an old adversary is stalking him once he learns that some troubling experiments may be in the works stemming from a mysterious billionaire who has some connection to his mentor known only as the Recruiter. Winter finds that his tendency to amateur sleuthing may lead to a violent end for a blossoming romance that bring him a peace that he has never known before.

This has been an interesting series so far, and this novel brings the development of Cameron Winter’s character to a critical point. The structure of the novels was a little unique in that Winter’s past comes to light during the scenes when he is in therapy. The reader gets to know of the Recruiter, a man of deep faith and deadly cunning. The Recruiter has his own enemies closing in, and Winter has to determine if his trust and faith in him has been misplaced or not.

Klavan has often claimed that this is his best novel in this series. I am not sure about that, but I can agree that it’s quite good. There is a bit of a twist that dips into some science fiction elements, but it still works. I also like that Cameron seems to be evolving as the series moves along, and the introduction of Gwendolyn Lord raises the stakes quite a bit if he continues to probe the oddest of misdeeds on the side.

It’s a little debatable for me if this is the best novel in the series, but there is no question that reading it is time well spent for mystery fans. I am quite ready for the next installment to be released later this year.

In the meantime, I return to a recent addition to a much longer running range written by Jonathan Kellerman. Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis find another potential killer is stalking the streets of Los Angelos as if it’s Open Season.

The Queen’s Jewels is a novel that is part of the Murder, She Wrote range and is an adequate literary diversion. Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain are credited as co-writers. Since Jessica Fletcher is a fictional character, I think we can trust that Bain deserves full credit on this one.

Jessica Fletcher is invited to lecture on a cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2, which is making a transatlantic voyage from London to New York. She has been aware of a jewel theft that has occurred in Europe in which the owner was murdered. The mystery seems to have followed her aboard the ship, and she encounters old friends who were former intelligence officers and an insurance investigator. Although Jessica is reluctant to get involved in another mystery while on a working holiday, another murder onboard compels her to use her gifts of observation and deductive to piece this particular puzzle together.

Nothing too spectacular in this one. There is a bit more depth in some of the characters than we would see in the television show. It does seem to be a good choice to write this in first person perspective from Jessica’s viewpoint. Sometimes I struggle with imagining Angela Lansbury saying some of the dialogue, but the effort is valiant enough.

There were probably more recurring characters than I would have liked. We had Michael Haggerty, Inspector George Sutherland, and Dennis Stanton all in one book, which sort of felt a little too gimmicky.

It is another cruise ship murder trope, but it was still a fun read. It did manage a few interesting twists and surprises at the end.

The effort to write a blog on this novel is probably not all that relevant, but I hope it’s a fun read as well.

Now, I am going to move on to more serious literary contributions such as the latest Star Trek novel from Greg Cox entitled Identity Theft.

The Ghost Orchid is a recent thriller written by the prolific Jonathan Kellerman and features Dr. Alex Delaware who is brought in by his friend, Milo Sturgis, to consult on another peculiar murder.

A pool boy arrives at a house to do some maintenance and finds his task impeded by a couple of dead bodies floating in the water. Dr. Alex Delaware, psychologist extraordinaire, is almost recovered from a recent near-fatal injury when Detective Milo Sturgis finally calls him to take a look at the scene to see if he had any insights on where the investigation should go. Milo and Alex find that both victims have some troubling histories, so it is not clear who was the primary target and who may have just been unlucky. They also find that marital infidelity is at the root of the scene, but the motive may not be as obvious as it would first appear. The dead woman’s identity turns into a deeper mystery the more Alex and Milo dig.

Kellerman is one of those reliable and interesting suspense writers, and this installment in his long-running series continues his impressive publishing streak. This may also be one of his better entries even though there is not a whole lot that has changed by the dynamic between his characters. I did like the choice to not have Alex focus too much on what happened in the immediately preceding novel where he was nearly killed. Milo had been hesitant to consult with Delaware, but it was not too far into the story before that bit got resolved.

I also thought the lingering question as to which victim was the primary target was quite nicely placed. There is a scene where Delaware’s long-time girlfriend provides an important clue, which I thought was kind of brilliant.

I usually find Kellerman’s works to be pretty solid as far as leisure reading goes, but this particular novel was little bit above that when it came to the plot and the questions that had to be answered.

Kellerman is also not shy about introducing the more likely suspect way later into the story at times, which I sort of appreciate since the cast of characters in mystery novels are all kind of laid out early. I think this tendency sort of emulates how real murder investigations tend to go.

Anyway, this particular Alex Delaware novel is a pleasurable and a bit more compelling than many in the series and has certainly ensured that it will not be too much longer before I hunt down the next installment.

Since Halloween is a few days away, I think I will let my reading journey turn even darker as I let Darcy Coates reveal How Bad Things Can Get.

Murder She Wrote: A Time for Murder by Jessica Fletcher and Jon Land was likely written solely by the latter since the charming Mrs. Fletcher is a fictional character from the television series.

This is my first foray into this long-running novel series. Of course, I was and still am a watcher of the television series that starred the late, and truly great Angela Lansbury.

Jessica Fletcher is invited to a retirement party of a former colleague from her teaching days. She is also interviewed for a high school newspaper; however, the young woman who met with her is subsequently murdered. Jessica and the sheriff in Cabot Cove, Maine discover a connection to a previous murder over decades in the past in which Jessica had her first exposure to amateur sleuthing. This was back before she became a bestselling novelist, and her husband was still living. The readers sort of get two murder plots for the price of one here.

It’s a fun, easy read for the most part. I did have some trouble conjuring Angela Lansbury’s portrayal in my mind’s eye with some of the dialogue and scenes. written by Land. Land also did not worry too much about age discrepancies or anything since the television series ended well before the Internet and ubiquitous cell phone use. That was a little distracting, but I was able to set that aside for the most part and enjoy the story.

Obviously, this isn’t really great literature, but it was a fun diversion. The novel series has yet to really slow down. This particular novel was published in 2019 and was by no means the first one. If I feel like revisiting Mrs. Fletcher’s exploits in print, I will have plenty of options. There is actually little doubt that I will do just that.

Until then, I am on to a grittier reading indulgence with Mickey Spillane’s The Killing Man.