Therapy

"Been a while since I had me a nice little whodunit," Milo Sturgis tells psychologist Alex Delaware. Though there's definitely nothing nice about the brutal tableau behind the yellow crime-scene tape.

On a lonely lovers' lane in the hills of Los Angeles, a young couple lies murdered in a car. Each bears a single gunshot wound to the head. But the female victim has also been impaled by a metal spike. And that savage stroke of psychopathic fury tells Milo this case will call for more than standard police procedure. As he explains to Delaware, "Now we're veering into your territory."

It is dark territory, indeed. The dead woman remains unidentified and seemingly unknown. But her companion has a name: Gavin Quick - and his troubled past eventually landed him on a therapist's couch. It's there, on familiar turf, that Delaware hopes to find vital clues. And that means going head-to-head with Dr Mary Lou Koppel, a popular celebrity psychologist who fiercely guards the privacy of her clients . . . dead or alive.

Jonathan Kellerman has made the psychological thriller his own gripping province with his bestselling series of Alex Delaware novels. As provocative as it is suspenseful, 'Therapy' is premier Kellerman that finds the bestselling author firing on all creative cylinders. This new adventure takes Delaware on a harrowing exploration into the realm he knows best: the human psyche, in all its complexity, mystery and terrifying propensity for darkness.