Twisted

Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman
hardcover, 372 pages
Ballantine Books, 2004
ISBN-13: 9780345465252
mystery
highly recommended

Synopsis

Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor has helped psychologist Alex Delaware crack tough cases in the past, most recently in Jonathan Kellerman's New York Times bestseller A Cold Heart. Now the complex and wryly compassionate Petra is once again at the center of the action, in a novel of cunning twists and page-turning suspense.
Lifeless bodies sprawl in a dance-club parking lot after a brutal L.A. drive-by. Of the four seemingly random victims, one stands out: a girl with pink shoes who cannot be identified-and who, days later, remains a Jane Doe. With zero leads and no apparent motive, it's another case destined for the cold file-until Petra decides to follow her instincts and descends into a world of traveling grifters and bloodthirsty killers, pursuing a possible eyewitness whose life is in mortal danger.
Finding her elusive quarry-alive-isn't all Petra has on her plate: departmental politics threatens to sabotage her case, and her personal life isn't doing much better. If all that wasn't enough, Isaac Gomez, a whiz-kid grad student researching homicide statistics at the station house, is convinced he's stumbled upon a bizarre connection between several unsolved murders. The victims had nothing in common, yet each died by the same method, on the same date-a date that's rapidly approaching again. And that leaves Petra with little time to unravel the twisted logic of a cunning predator who's evaded detection for years-and whose terrible hour is once more at hand.

My Thoughts:

Twisted is a police procedural novel featured a clever plot, good characterizations, and while Petra Connor is a good character, the novel could only have benefited from more page time with 22 yr old genius Isaac Gomez. If Kellerman is planning, as it appears, to start a new series featuring Petra, he might actually consider keeping the character Isaac Gomez too. In Twisted, two separate series of murders are being solved - a mass shooting of four teens as well as a series of six unsolved murders that took place on the same day over six years.. While Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis are not around for those Kellerman fans who won't like any book without them, this really was a satisfying mystery all on it's own. After reading seven Kellerman novels in a row, I'm all Kellerman-ed out, although it was interesting to see shared phrases and descriptions used in all the novels. Highly Recommended

Quotes:

May brought azure skies and California optimism to Hollywood. Petra Connor worked nights and slept through the blue. She had her own reason to be cheerful: solving two whodunit murders. opening

Within days after closing both files, the loneliness set in. Petra had made the mistake of getting intimate with a partner, and now she was working and living solo. pg. 6

Working solo suited her just fine, but she knew it was only a matter of time before some new transfer was foisted on her.
After closing Yoshimura and Kashigian, she took a couple of days off, figuring on a little downtime.
Instead, she got a bloodbath and Isaac Gomez. pg. 8

A call from the station woke her up at one-fifteen a.m.
“Multiple one eighty-sevens at the Paradiso Club, Sunset near Western, all hands on deck,” said the dispatcher. “It’s probably on TV already.”
Petra flicked on the tube as she headed for the shower. The first network she tried was running the story.
A bunch of kids shot outside the Paradiso. Some sort of hip-hop concert, an altercation in the parking lot, gun-barrel poking out of a car window.
Four bodies. pg. 9

Isaac's neatly typed sheet lay flat on her desk. He sat in the metal chair by the side of her desk. Drummed his fingers. Stopped. Pretended to be nonchalant.

She read the headline again. Boldface.

June 28 Homicides: An Embedded Pattern?

....Below the title, a list of six homicides, all on June 28, on or near midnight. pg. 29

"...The truth is most poor people just want to live their lives, like anyone else. The problem isn't poor people, it's bad people who prey on the poor because the poor lack resources." pg. 55