Mixed review.

I’ve never really got into the Jonathan Kellerman books.

Open Season (2025) is 40th of his Alex Delaware series.

Psychologist Alex Delaware and Homicide Detective Milo Sturgis race against time to find a twisted killer …

I found the book slow. There was no real race against time. No rush

The body of an aspiring actress is found dumped near a hospital emergency room.

She’s been drugged and murdered and the motive for the callous crime remains maddeningly out of reach. Until, a prime suspect materializes. Another Hollywood hopeful. Only to be shot dead by a sniper using a weapon that turns out to have been catalogued in a previous murder. And another, before that. It’s not long before more bodies begin piling up.

What makes the murderous spree baffling is the apparent lack of connection among the victims. Is this the work of a random thrill killer, the toughest of all cases to unravel?

Kellerman’s writing style is unusual. Short sentences. Vivid, detailed descriptions.

Smart, sometimes entertaining dialogue.

But — for me — this book was too much police procedural, not enough action.

Book #1 in this series was excellent ➙ Mindful of Murder.

For me, Meditation on Murder is not quite as good. But still worth reading.

Butler-detective Helen Thorpe returns to help a wannabe influencer get her life in order—and solve the murders of her fellow content creators …

When Buddhist butler Helen Thorpe is loaned out to help Cartier Hightower get her life in order, Helen finds herself working for a young woman entirely unbound by the fetters of good taste or sound judgment.

One of Cartier’s fellow content creators has recently died in a strange accident. Soon after Helen arrives, another is killed in an equally bizarre way.

Cartier begins to drag Helen around on the influencer circuit, where neither of them is particularly welcome. Then comes the terrible incident at the EDM nightclub that turns Cartier into a global pariah, at least according to social media.

Helen hopes a period of simplicity and reflection and an internet detox will help Cartier find her true nature and maybe acquire some social graces. But Helen’s job getsmuch harder when Cartier’s friends show up at the lavish ranch where Cartier and Helen have retreated.

Soon, Helen finds herself trying to avoid becoming Instafamous while bringing some peace to a girl who very much needs it. This task turns out to be even more impossible when it becomes clear that they have been followed to Weeping Creek Ranch by a murderer. 

Juby is a creative writing professor at Vancouver Island University, in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

19th Christmas

Christmas is coming upon San Francisco.

Detective Sgt. Lindsay Boxer, her family, and her friends of the Women’s Murder Club have much to celebrate. Crime is down. The courts are slow and the medical examiner’s office is quiet. Journalist Cindy Thomas is working on a story about the true meaning of Christmas in San Francisco.

Then a series of crimes and threats of horrific crimes to come put the entire police force into nonstop action. At first, all they have is a name, “Loman,” behind the threats. It takes until Christmas before enough pieces come together to find enough to hope to pinpoint where Loman can be caught.

The 20th Victim

Very good. One of my favourites.

Sergeant Lindsay Boxer tackles an ambitious case that spans San Francisco, L.A., and Chicago in this pulse-pounding thriller of “smart characters” and “shocking twists” (Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

Three victims, three bullets, three cities. The shooters’ aim is as fearsomely precise as their target selection. When Lindsay realizes that the fallen men and women excel in a lucrative, criminal activity, she leads the charge in the manhunt for the killers. As the casualty list expands, fear and fascination with this suspicious shooting gallery galvanizes the country.
The victims were no angels, but are the shooters villains . . . or heroes?

21st Birthday

Also great.

Detective Lindsay Boxer takes a vow to protect a young woman from a serial killer long enough to see her twenty-first birthday.

When young wife and mother Tara Burke goes missing with her baby girl, all eyes are on her husband, Lucas. He paints her not as a missing person but a wayward wife—until a gruesome piece of evidence turns the investigation criminal. 

While Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas pursues the story and M.E. Claire Washburn harbors theories that run counter to the SFPD’s, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender . . .who suddenly puts forward an unexpected suspect. If what Lucas tells law enforcement has even a grain of truth, there isn’t a woman in the state of California who’s safe from the reach of an unspeakable threat.