Author Jonathan Kellerman has cornered a market in mystery thrillers with a psychological edge in the solving of crime. He invests his alter ego character, Alex Delaware, with his own expertise as a clinical psychologist applying it to the investigation of dead bodies and providing a unique emphasis on the methodology.

Delaware works with and for his lifetime buddy, Milo Sturgis, an outed detective with a lietenant grade in the LAPD. Milo is unusual for the level of trust he places in Alex's insights into criminal behavior. He's very much the law enforcement professional, fully representing all that it stands for, but an appetite for humor and donuts squeezes in. When he's investigating leads, he sometimes goes it alone while Alex pursues his own tracks on the case, but more often than not, they proceed as a team unlike any other detective duo in the literature. Many pages of an Alex Delaware novel is talk, as the pair compares notes and reactions to every development in the investigation. Milo is so receptive to his consultant's scenarios that being awakened out of sleep in the wee hours is likely to have him in his car minutes later. You don't read Kellerman if you're into action. It's more about the suspense and the craft of psychoanalysis.

It's with this chemistry that they track down all who might have had a hand in the abducion of two-year old Kristal Malley from a mall in Panorama City when she momentarily pulled away from her mother's grasp. The subsequent discovery of her dead body launches an instant investigation propelled by shock.

Two boys are immediately implicated from the security tapes and other evidence and it isn't long before 12-year old bad seed Troy Turner and lumbering, retarded 13-year old Rand Duchay are rounded up. The legal machinery grinds for a few days and Alex Delaware gets a call from Judge Tom Laskin for a psych evaluation. In jailhouse visits with these boys, they accuse the other of being the killer. Only Rand admits to some blame, and its traces of Kristal Malleys skin that has been found under Troy's fingernails.

Pretty soon everyone is aware that Delaware's report to the court is key, and they come calling like lobbiests at a lawmaker's convention, beginning with the deviously intelligent Troy, followed by the attorneys for the boys, the wierdly scrappy, tailored Sydney Weider for Troy, the less dominating Lauritz Montez for Rand. "What's your report going to say," Weider has the temerity to ask.

Before Alex can turn in his report, he's removed from needing to by the judge. "Troy Turner's dead," he reports. Murdered in prison in what looks like a professional job.

Eight years later, on the eve of taking off for New York to be with his girlfriend Allison, Alex gets a call from Rand who has just been released from the Chino camp for juvenile offenders, the C.Y.A. (Criminal Youth Authority). The convicted young murderer has something to tell. They arrange to meet near the phone booth Rand is calling from, in Westwood. Alex races to get there but finds no Rand. Worried, he calls his detective buddy Milo Sturgis to report the incident that bears personal safety issues. A few hours later Milo calls to report a body in Bel Air.

From there it gets complicated, arousing all the nastiness of the original investigation with the families and the Daneys, the reverend Drew and wife Cherish, a curiously interested evangelical couple with a houseful of foster children that Alex had met as friends and supporters of Troy when he was writing his report.

The motives of all interested parties are explored and dissected at great length as Alex and Milo pursue the threads of relationships and agendas of the various players. Between the hints derived from the brief meetings with the two boys, the subterfuges of competing lawyers and others, the solution of the case will come down to motivation, and not just for Kristal's murder. Some very savvy balancing and insight will be required, with the particular analytic prowess of a psych consultant as the defining tool.

Despite an overbalance of analytic speculation with little action, it's a suspensefully complex murder case and a devishly interesting read by a master of a craft and a profession.