The Clinic by Jonathan Kellerman

October 31, 2009; Jinhua, Zhejiang, China
Paperback, 1996; 465 pp.

I know Kellerman from the TruTV appearances he has made, but this is his first book I read. I read this book during my Hong Kong/China trip.

Alex Delaware is a psychologist retained by the LA police department in the case of the murder of Hope Devane. We find out eventually that four murders are committed by the same person Reed Muscadine to avenge his kidney’s being harvested for an organized crime boss. Three of the victims (Devane, Mandy Wright, and Casey Locking) were involved with the drugging and surgery on Muscadine; the fourth, a bartender, was a somewhat innocent bystander.

The story leads the reader down many dead ends such as the novel written by Hope Devane. Perhaps that’s how real life investigations work, but some people read fiction to escape real life. The actual plot could have been developed better. The climax all happened in the span of a few chapters. I kept wondering if I missed anything, and at the end I decided I didn’t; it was just a poorly constructed novel.

And I didn’t like the way the story ended: without resolution. The novel isn’t good enough to qualify for that sort of an ending.

All said and done, however, I rate Kellerman as a better author than Patterson.