![\"hotel\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/hotel.jpg\")
<\/a>The duo of LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis and child psychologist Alex Delaware has taken on a number of demeanors over the many volumes of their adventures against crime.\u00a0 Foremost, of course, is Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, a yin and yang combo of intuition and analysis.\u00a0 Other characterizations obtain, particularly, given their penchant for banter, Milo\u2019s portly figure, and Alex\u2019s dry delivery, Laurel and Hardy.\u00a0 In this latest installment, Milo comes up with a new job description: \u201cWhen you get down to it, we\u2019re both historians.\u201d<\/p>\nThat\u2019s exactly the skill they need for this latest case.\u00a0 Thalia Mars, just a few days shy of her 100th birthday, cajoles Alex into a meeting, getting his attention with some enigmatic questioning.\u00a0 When he returns to the decaying suite in the hotel where she has lived for more than six decades, he finds her dead.\u00a0 No immediate motive appears, with nothing of value kept or missing from her suite, and her estate destined for a children\u2019s hospital.\u00a0 It\u2019s up to Alex and Milo to go \u201c\u2026bravely into the past,\u201d to re-create her \u201c\u2026increasingly narrowing world, two rooms her universe.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few fragile threads emerge, leading them along unusual paths.\u00a0 Well, unusual in another city perhaps, but not Los Angeles.\u00a0 After all, it\u2019s \u201c\u2026a city where the county coroner runs a retail website and guides driving pimped-up hearses cruise past the manors of dead rich people, doling out schadenfreude.\u201d\u00a0 The trail leads to a past strewn with mobsters, lawyers and\/or thieves, and finally proves to be the result of \u201c\u2026the long arm of the lawless,\u201d executed by a \u201c\u2026femme way past fatale.\u201d<\/p>\n
The progress toward Alex\u2019s intuitive jump to a solution is enhanced here with a larger role for his significant other, Robin.\u00a0 She interjects herself into his ruminations, and provides a female perspective hitherto unplumbed in this series.\u00a0 It\u2019s just the jolt Alex needs and leads him to a discovery that makes the coroner comment that, \u201cYou\u2019re a smart man.\u00a0 Or you understand women. \u2026 Both possibilities scare me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, it doesn\u2019t scare us, it delights us once again.\u00a0 Check into the Heartbreak Hotel<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pleasant visit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bob Moyer takes a look at the latest book in a series he\u2019s long enjoyed. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer HEARTBREAK HOTEL. By Jonathan Kellerman. Ballantine Books. 351 pages.\u00a0$28.99 The duo of LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis and child psychologist Alex Delaware has taken on a number of demeanors over the many volumes of their adventures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[590,5],"tags":[70,425,956,69,27],"class_list":["post-2118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-detective-fiction-mysteries","category-mysteries","tag-alex-delaware","tag-detective-fiction","tag-heartbreak-hotel","tag-jonathan-kellerman","tag-mystery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2120,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions\/2120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}