Four bodies. One connection. Zero eye rolls. Five stars.
Four victims. One very specific method of murder. And absolutely no obvious reason why any of them should be connected. Jonathan Kellerman had me hooked.
Malice begins with the discovery of a young man who has been shot precisely in the brainstem, stabbed postmortem, and dumped in a secluded area on a college campus. And there are absolutely no clues. Then another body turns up. And another. By the time there are four victims, the method is clearly a connection, but finding anything else that ties them together is another matter. Even more puzzling, the fourth victim is the brother of the first.
Enter LAPD detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware, who make one heck of an investigative team.
I particularly enjoyed Milo. He's smart, methodical, and has a wonderfully dry, sometimes macabre sense of humor that made me laugh at some very unexpected moments. Alex complements him perfectly. He doesn't spend the entire book trying to psychoanalyze everyone in sight. He observes, listens, thinks things through, and occasionally sees something from an angle Milo hasn't considered. Their different strengths work together naturally, and I thoroughly enjoyed following the investigation with them.
Kellerman's writing is also wonderfully visual. I could see this story as I read it: the locations, the crime scenes, the environments where Milo and Alex were working. He gives enough detail to put me firmly into the scene without slowing the story down with description just for description's sake.
But the real hook for me was that murder method. It was so distinctive that it seemed impossible for these deaths not to be connected, yet there was seemingly nothing tying the victims together. And, of course, Kellerman kept me guessing. I never figured out where he was taking me, which made watching everything finally come together even more satisfying. No spoilers here, but I finished this one with a very big smile.
I honestly don't have a meaningful criticism. I didn't get bored. I didn't get frustrated. I didn't roll my eyes even once. The plotting was smart, the mystery kept me guessing, the characters kept me entertained, and the ending absolutely landed. This was exactly the kind of crime novel I love.
Readers should be aware of descriptions of murder, violent death, and crime scenes, including postmortem violence and discussion of human remains.
Fans of intelligent police procedurals and psychological crime fiction, especially readers who enjoy trying to solve seemingly unrelated murders alongside the investigators, should have a great time with this one. Malice was my kind of murder and mayhem from beginning to end.
