Just Finished Reading the Book Mystery by Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Kellerman is a psychologist who also has written several books, including a slew of mystery novels featuring Los Angeles-based psychologist Alex Delaware as he teams up with police detective Milo Sturgis. I finally just got around to reading one them, titled Mystery...reportedly the 26th in this series.  Who knows how many Kellerman has written by now or even plans to write.  I do know that his psychological approach doesn't exactly gel with me.  Here, let me lie back on my coach and explain how I feel about it, doc...

As for the actual narrative, story, and characters (all which involve the investigation of the shooting death of a mysterious beautiful woman...appropriately nicknamed "Mystery"...after a party held at the closing of a famous old L.A. hotel), Mystery ranks right up there with the best of the genre, although the ending reminded me of those Perry Mason courtroom dramas where the guilty party suddenly breaks down and profusely confesses to the crime just before the final commercial break.  On the other hand, as I unfortunately see it, there is a great amount of what I call psychological coddling in this novel as Delaware plies his trade by poking around into others' psyches and manipulating them by turning the psychologically effective catch phrases and pushing the right buttons to get  the responses he wants.  A master manipulator, indeed.  Plus, he is continually making a big deal about his profession's ethics and how he can't say this or help with that. I don't think I would get along well with this guy, and that can be a fatal judgment when talking about reading through a long series.  In contrast, I quite empathize with Sue Grafton's protagonist Kinsey Millhone in her alphabet mystery series.  And, to illustrate my point, I've gone through 15 books in it so far.  So I don't know how many more Alex Delaware mystery stories I'm going to read...I do have another that I picked up dirt cheap at that Friends of the Library book sale last April here in Gainesville, so I'll most likely give Kellerman another chance...