Cheap Therapy (Book) (Jonathan Kellerman) Price

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Customer Reviews of Therapy

Uneven Delaware story -- almost too complex a plot
Kellerman fans (the people that really know all his books), as opposed to the "professional" reviewers, will find this latest psychologist Alex Delaware novel, as usual featuring co-star gay detective Milo Sturgis, somewhat puzzling. If we didn't know Alex and Milo well, we might well find their characters enigmatic, with inconsistent action and a pursuit of the clues that borders on hobbyist. When a young couple is found murdered, with an unnecessary impalement of the female victim, Milo and Doc Delaware pick up the case almost on a whim since they were nearby. [Apparently Sturgis can partner with Alex almost at will -- how his presumably high bills get paid is conveniently never addressed...] While the male is quickly ID'd, it takes much of the book to discover who the female is, generating much of what true suspense there was. The rest of the plot gets embroiled with a loosely knit firm of three psychologists specializing in private patient therapy (hence the title) who, as the plot unfolds, seem to be involved in a highly shady billing scheme involving ex-cons as both patients and, well, patient pimps. Before it's over, one of the three gets offed, the murdered boy's father disappears, and the storyline twists and turns in the wind. The ending is unusually inconclusive, with our stars making some very interesting value judgments about which bad guys to pursue and which not, an outcome we perceived as ridiculously unrealistic.

Kellerman has always been a good story teller, but it seems his quality varies more widely as his quantity increases. Delaware's love life, frequently a tiresome thing with "ex" Robin, is a little more normal with new lover Allison, but their shop talk gets to be a bit much. A token cameo by Robin and her dog was just silly filler, and the scenes with Delaware playing "good cop / bad cop" with Sturgis went down poorly. We were more than tired of the multiple bad guys, and by the end barely cared who did what. This strikes us as a book that needed to be edited better -- improve the professionalism of the principles; shorten the billing fraud thing which should be contained to the sub-plot that it is (we can figure out ourselves it provides motive); and humanize the dead boy's family by opening up the true facts sooner; and we might have something here. As it is, it's a lukewarm entry in the series.

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Disappointing
I love Jonathan Kellerman's stories about Alex Delaware and his friend Milo Sturgis, but this one, like Mr. Kellerman's last book "Conspiracy Club," was not up to par.

The plot got bogged down in the intricacies of government funding and Medi-Cal billing. The average citizen dislikes dealing with insurance in real life, so why would they want to read about it in their spare time? Too many characters contributed to this problem. I found it hard to care about Gavin Quick, and it was even harder to figure out whether he was a bad guy or a good guy. Ditto for his father, aunt, and ex-girlfriend. And why the long ramble about the girl who was found in the car with him? Background is one thing, Mr. Kellerman, but superfluous writing is quite another.

Go back to psychology and murder, and leave the California insurance business alone, Mr. Kellerman. Your books are much more enjoyable that way.

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boring and simple-minded plot, script, acting...whatever
i've found kellerman and his wife's stuff were all mediocre and bored to death. he's one of the writers who i've dumped long time ago with tony hillerman, james patterson, jeffrey parker, lawrence block....since they've been dumped by me so long ago, i just couldn't remember the full rejected list. to me, they are small-timer writers, could only deliver small-timer-like characters with small-timer-like formatted stories with lame-duck-like plots, not even worth to burn the oil and lose your balance sheet. to me, james patterson is just like a lousy serial killer who could not do the real serial killings by himself but found out a way to ask the clueless readers to pay for his imaginery kills. as to kellerman, well, if i really got any psychi problem, i won't go to him to seek cure either. before he telling me time's up, i've already left long time ago. so far, his only great creations are his books' titles.