The Murderer’s Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman

If you are one of those readers who enjoyed the Alex Delaware series by bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman, it’s time to switch gears and head over to the other side of his creative resourcefulness for what he has in store for his fans. And it won’t disappoint, that I can assure you, for Kellerman’s protagonist is a strong female, of the femme fatale type, yet susceptible with demons of her own, and with strong ties to Alex Delaware. You've never met anyone like her before!

The Murderer’s Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman is about a young psychologist Grace Blades who was once a student of Alex Delaware. Grace is no ordinary mortal. She witnessed the brutal and horrific death of her parents. All the goodness in her were instilled by her foster parents. Yet, there runs a voracious and insatiable streak contrary to her ordinary life which has brought to the fore Kellerman’s expertise as a clinical psychologist. Like fish to water, writing a psychological thriller comes naturally to Kellerman.

The fulcrum of Kellerman’s The Murderer’s Daughter is the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” personality of its main protagonist, Grace Blades. Dedicated, brilliant, caring, young and lively, Grace is a supremely fantastic character, finely etched, and fits her job as a psychologist perfectly. But Grace’s other personality is inconceivable for those who knows her as the competent psychologist that she is during day time. When night comes, Grace ventures out seeking for excitement and adventure, ostensibly to relieve herself from the stress of her job and the nightmares of her childhood. She does crazy things. You’ve to find out what happens next after a person with whom she had a tryst comes barging into her office and is soon found dead.

The Murderer’s Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman is a hugely entertaining read with Alex Delaware making a brief appearance. Riveting and suspenseful, Kellerman has crafted a superbly well-paced story with a hard-nosed protagonist in control. Though she lives her life on the edge of civility, it is impossible not to root for her. Delving into the deepest recesses of the human capacity for good and evil, Jonathan Kellerman's masterful latest novel will captivate readers from start to finish.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

After last year’s absorbing thriller Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King returns with its sequel as the unlikely team of ex-policeman Bill Hodges, Jerome Robinson and Holly Gibney tried to make sense of the City Center Massacre and also save the life of Pete Saubers from the clutches of a near-deranged Morris Bellamy. While the main thread of the story revolves around Pete and Bellamy, it also delves deep into the plot of Mr. Mercedes and the massacre which took the lives of eight innocent people, maimed three, seriously injured twelve and caused minor injuries to seventeen others.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King begins in the year 1978 with the murder of a novelist at his New Hampshire cabin by a die-hard admirer. The cloistered eighty-year-old novelist John Rothstein found himself awake when the privacy of his cabin was invaded by an obsessed fan Morris Bellamy and two accomplices. Not content with the cash available, Bellamy wants to make sure if the rumored sell-out of his favorite character Jimmy Gold in the next Rothstein novel is true, and the ensuing melee proved disastrous.

Bellamy’s plans unraveled when he was arrested and sent to prison for thirty-five years for another violent crime, but not before he stashed the loot away. A high school student Pete Saubers, whose father Thomas Saubers was seriously injured in Mr. Mercedes, and whose family is struggling to make both ends meet, found the buried treasure and sent the money to his parents concealing his real identity while keeping the drafts of Rothstein’s novels. All hell broke loose when Bellamy is released on parole in 2014 and discovered his treasures missing. It is up to King’s likeable trio of Bill Hodges, Jerome Robinson and Holly Gibney to keep Pete from harm’s way and protect his family.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King is an ambitious and well-crafted hard-boiled thriller which can be read as a stand-alone though it is the middle book of a trilogy. Its masterful pacing and riveting plotting makes it a heart thumping read, intensely thrilling and absolutely gripping. Author Stephen King as is his wont, delivers a novel that has stunned me by its shrewdness and ability to sustain interest.

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