True Detectives A Novel

by Kellerman, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9780345495181
• ISBN10: 0345495187
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-29
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

Now available in a tall Premium Edition, "True Detectives" follows Moe Reed and Aaron Fox on the twisted trail of a missing girl. This dark, baffling whodunit forces the brothers to put aside their mutual animosity to confront the unresolved family mystery that had turned them into enemies.

Author Biography

Jonathan Kellerman is one of the world’s most popular authors. He has brought his expertise as a clinical psychologist to thirty bestselling crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, The Butcher’s Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, and Twisted. With his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, he co-authored the bestsellers Double Homicide and Capital Crimes. He is the author of numerous essays, short stories, scientific articles, two children’s books, and three volumes of psychology, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children, as well as the lavishly illustrated With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California and New Mexico. Their four children include the novelist Jesse Kellerman.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpts

Chapter One


August 9, 1979  

Alleged air-conditioning," said Darius Fox. "What's your take, John Jasper? Motor pool morons set us on bake or broil?"  

Jack Reed laughed and used a meaty, freckled forearm to clear sweat from his face. Scanning the night-darkened Dumpsters and butt-sides of shuttered, low-rent businesses that lined the alley, he sucked on his Parliament and blew smoke out the cruiser's window as Darius kept the car moving forward at ten mph.  

Ten years ago, to the day, the Manson Family had butchered Sharon Tate and a whole bunch of other people. If either Fox or Reed was aware of the anniversary, neither thought it worth mentioning.  

Crazy Charlie's crimes might as well have been on another planet; big-ticket outrage on high-end real estate. Fox and Reed's Southwest Division shifts were filled with nonstop penny-ante crap that sometimes blossomed into stomach-churning violence. Reality that never made the papers because, as far as they could see, the papers were works of fiction.  

Fox said, "Man, it's a steam bath."  

Reed said, "Alleged, as in this is a motor vehicle. More like a shopping cart with a cherry on top."

  Fox had prepped for driving the way he usually did, hand-vacuuming the driver's portion of the bench seat, then wiping the steering wheel down with his private bottle of Purell. Now it was his own sweat coating the plastic. "Hand me a tissue, J.J."  

Reed complied and his partner rubbed the wheel till it squeaked.   Both men continued to study the alley as they crawled. Nothing. Good. One half of the shift had passed.  

Jack Reed said, "Alleged, as in Jimmy Carter's a commander in chief."  

"Now you're getting unpleasantly political."  

"That's a problem?"   "Night like this it is."  

"Truth is truth, Darius. It was Peanut Boy helped that loony towel-head back into Eye-Ran and look at all the crap that brought down."  

"No debate on Farmer Bucktooth being a nitwit, John Jasper. I just don't want to pollute our precious time together with small things like international affairs."  

Reed thought about that. "Fair enough."  

"I'm known for my fairness."  

Slow shift; the usual drunk and disorderlies at Mexican dance halls on Vermont, a couple of false-alarm burglary calls, an assortment of miscreants warned and released because none of them was worth the paperwork.  

The last call they'd fielded before embarking on alley-duty was yet another noise complaint at a USC fraternity, already taken care of by the campus rent-a-cops by the time Fox and Reed arrived. Rich, confident college boys saying yessir and nossir, scooping up beer bottles from the lawn, hurrying inside to continue the merriment. Wink wink wink.  

Reed smoked his Parliament down to a shred, pinched it cold between his fingers, flicked the remnant out the window. He was a ruddy, blond fireplug, five nine on a good day, two hundred muscled pounds, thirty but looking older, with skin leathered by the sun and a nose flattened by high school football. A hay-colored crewcut topped his bullet skull. A naturally grainy voice was coarsened further by two packs a day.  

Three years out of the service, all his time spent running an armory in Germany.  

He said, "Tell you what alleged is, Darius: L.A. nights cooling off. Night like this, might as well have stayed in Bull Shoals."   "And missed the opportunity to ride with me?"  

Reed grinned. "Perish the thought."  

"Damn heat," said Fox, dabbing sweat from his straight-edge mustache. He was a tall, rangy black man, thirty-one years old, a f

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Excerpted from True Detectives by Jonathan Kellerman
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