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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 96 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 found the following review helpful:
 An Okay Alex Delaware Novel Sep 25, 2006
By Thriller Lover
I think Jonathan Kellerman is an underrated writer. He's been writing thrillers for over twenty years, and I still enjoy his novels and his writing style. RAGE is his nineteenth novel featuring his primary hero, Dr. Alex Delaware. I found the book enjoyable, but minor.
This novel is essentially a murder mystery involving the death of a young child, and the repercussions that follow. The first third of RAGE is actually pretty stellar, a first-rate whodunit. Kellerman does a good job describing the initial crime and Delaware's role in the subsequent court proceeding. As always, the dialogue and characterization is well done.
Unfortunately, the novel goes downhill after the first 100 or so pages. The remainder of the book consists of Alex and his cop friend Milo investigating a series of grisly new murders that are potentially related to the child's death. This leads to an increasingly convoluted storyline that I eventually found confusing.
Furthermore, there is too much boring dialogue between Alex and Milo speculating about about who committed the crime. Most of this dialogue only serves to slow down the narrative pace of the book. Also, when the killer's identity is finally revealed, his motive for the crime is absurd -- pure over-the-top insanity. No rational explanation is given for such psychotic behavior. To me, this is just lazy plotting on the part of Kellerman.
To make matters worse, the ending of this novel is surprisingly weak and open-ended, and left me heavily dissatisfied. Given the rather horrid behavior detailed in this novel, I was hoping for an ending that supplied more closure.
This book is a decent mystery novel, but if you're new to Kellerman, my advice is to skip this novel and begin with his earlier work, such as WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS.
37 of 46 found the following review helpful:
 his best in a while May 27, 2005
By M. S. Butch
I look forward to all the alex delaware books, but some are better than others, and this one is very good. Other reviewers have described the plot; I will just say that it was pleasurably twisty. About a third of the way through the book I thought the solution was obvious, and I was disappointed, but I was wrong!
A minor flaw is that the book ended too abruptly. It needed a little more of a wind-down.
SPOILER ALERT!
There is a hint toward the end of the book that Alex and Allison may be heading for a split and Robin may reappear...Mr Kellerman, if you read these reviews, DON'T DO IT. While one criticism I would level at all of the Alex D. books is that the two female love interests do not have very well-developed characters, as far as they go, Allison is preferable. Robin is kind on whiney.
18 of 21 found the following review helpful:
Over Mature Sep 04, 2005
By Peter Gordon
A good crime novel needs to be well tethered in time and place, as well as steadily developing its central characters.
I'm not sure that Jonathon Kellerman is any longer doing this. His Los Angeles is only cursorily sketched in this latest novel, and there's next to nothing which locates it in the early 21st Century rather than, say, ten years earlier. A half hearted sub-plot strongly hints at a change in Alex's love life, but like the plot as a whole this depends on excessive co-incidence.
I don't think the plot convinces on other levels. Rather too much flash back, an inordinate amount of speculative dialogue between Milo and Alex, and the precipitate conclusion all diminish satisfaction. The minor characters are not established as effectively as in early novels, partly because they take less part in the narrative, which is chiefly propelled by the dialogue between the two main protagonists.
Kellerman writes well, as usual, with only an occasional over-straining after effect. He continues obsessively to describe every item of clothing worn by every character, which is wearing, and one has to wonder at the memories of Alex and some other characters.
All in all, I was disappointed. The fruit is rotting on the vine.
22 of 27 found the following review helpful:
 The Dr. Delaware novels may be getting back on track Jul 12, 2005
By Beth Cholette
"doctor_beth"
I've been a fan of Kellerman's for some time now and have read all of his books; I particularly enjoy the Alex Delaware series, especially since I'm a psychologist myself. However, like many other reviewers, I've felt that Kellerman had started to lose his touch in some of the most recent Dr. Delaware books; it seemed that he was recycling similar themes or incorporating ideas that were so far-fetched as to go beyond the boundaries of poetic license. Happily, RAGE is an improvement, and it gets back to the heart of what makes these books so engaging: the suspense-ladden storyline combined with the relationship between Alex and his police detective (now lieutenant) friend, Milo Sturges.
Here, Alex and Milo are trying to solve the murder of a mentally challenged young man who himself was accused of murder eight years before, a case in which Alex acted as a consultant. As always, the process of solving this mystery leads Alex and Milo to speculate about other connections and links to the crime. Unlike in some of the previous Dr. Delaware novels, however, the conjectures seem to follow from the evidence at hand, making the plot more believable. On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed in the book's ending, as the conclusion did not provide definitive answers to many of the questions raised throughout the story. Still, I enjoyed this book and look forward to finding out where Alex's adventures might take him next, including in terms of his love life.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Rage isn't his best Jun 30, 2005
By Fiction Librarian
I found this book by Jonathan Kellerman had an excellent plot, but the solution of the mystery seemed to be based on a great deal of conjecture between Alex and Milo. I felt the conclusions they came to were not based on finding clues so much as discussions between the two. I prefer stories with more action and discovery based on hunting for clues, rather than basing so much of the solution on discussion between two clever friends.
See all 96 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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