Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
Thirty years after the event: wealthy Ellie Barker hires LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware to re-investigate the murder of her mother. A cold case that has been investigated unsuccessfully by two other detectives. Digging back into the past they uncover the shady world of the eighties party circuit and a secret someone is willing to kill more than once to see kept hidden from view.
Jonathan Kellerman brings back his enduring duo of investigators in a book that shows no sign of either them [or him], losing their mojo. He makes excellent use of the unique character of L.A. as a city where self-reinvention is almost mandatory. Perhaps the city of angels provides an opportunity for the lucky to change their lives, and for the unlucky to lose everything.
Delaware is on fine form, a subtle counterfoil to the meat and potatoes Sturgis. Employing the whiles of a psychologist to draw information out of persons of interest they often don't know they hold.
Serpentine is confirmation, if any were needed, that the Alex Delaware novels are one of the most consistently high-quality series in the crime genre.
