Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy. I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. For this week’s Waiting on Wednesday I take a look at the intriguing upcoming crime fiction novel, Serpentine by Jonathan Kellerman, the latest entry in the long running Alex Delaware series.
The Alex Delaware books are a substantial collection of murder mystery novels that started all the way back in 1985 with When the Bough Breaks. This series, which currently consists of 35 novels, follows the titular protagonist, psychologist Alex Delaware, as he investigates complex and atypical murders throughout Los Angeles with his friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis. I only recently got into this series myself but I have so far read and reviewed the last two entries in the series, The Wedding Guest and The Museum of Desire. Both of these books have proven to be pretty interesting and gripping murder mysteries, and I personally loved the series’ trademark combination of unique murders, the camaraderie between the two main characters, the methodical and realistic take on the investigation and the intriguing culprits with unusual motivations. All of these help to produce some really enjoyable novels and I am fast becoming an established fan of the series.
As a result, I have been keeping an eye out for the next entry in the series and I was excited when I saw that the 36th book, Serpentine, was coming out next year. Serpentine, which is currently set for release in early February 2021, will continue to follow the team of Delaware and Sturgis as they turn their attention to a seemingly impossible to solve old cold case.
Goodreads Synopsis:
Psychologist Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis search for answers to a brutal, decades-old crime in this electrifying psychological thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.
LAPD homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis is a master detective. He has a near-perfect solve rate and he’s written his own rule book. Some of those successes–the toughest ones–have involved his best friend, the brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware. But Milo doesn’t call Alex in unless cases are “different.”
This murder warrants an immediate call. Milo’s independence has been compromised as never before, as the department pressures him to cater to the demands of a mogul: a hard-to-fathom, megarich young woman who is obsessed with reopening the coldest of cases–the decades-old death of the mother she never knew.
The facts describe a likely loser: a mysterious woman found with a bullet in her head in a torched Cadillac that has overturned on infamously treacherous Mulholland Drive. No physical evidence, no witnesses, no apparent motive. And a slew of detectives have already worked the case and failed. But as Delaware and Sturgis begin digging, the mist begins to lift. Too many coincidences. Facts turn out to be anything but. And as they soon discover, very real threats lurking in the present.
This is Delaware/Sturgis at their best: traversing the beautiful but forbidding place known as Los Angeles and exhuming the past in order to bring a vicious killer to justice.
Ooh, now this sounds like it could be a fun and captivating new entry the series. An unsolvable case, political pressures, mysterious familiar ties and a dangerous dive into the past all sound like a fantastic recipe for an exciting and addictive murder mystery novel. I am already rather intrigued by the curious mystery that is described in the above synopsis and I looking forward to seeing how the Kellerman unwraps the case and who the ultimate culprit is. I am also looking forward to seeing more of Delaware and Sturgis’s partnership in this book, especially when the two are faced with pressure and unreasonable control from the higher-ups in the LAPD, which could add some great drama and compromises to the narrative.
Based on how much I have enjoyed my previous experiences with the Alex Delaware series and Kellerman’s excellent writing, I am already extremely confident that I will enjoy Serpentine when it comes out next year. However, I am now also quite excited for this new, impressive-sounding mystery, which I think has a lot of potential. Overall, I think that Serpentine will be a fantastic and amazing read for the start of 2021 and I cannot wait to check it out.
The Unseen Library 