Blood Test

Jonathan Kellerman

9/26/2004

Dr. Alex Delaware is a child psychologist who no longer has an active practice. He retired after an extremely bad, sad case. Now he does consulting jobs and lives with his girlfriend, Robin. Robin is in Japan at the moment, selling one of her guitar models. Alex is busy consulting for a divorce lawyer. The ex-husband is furious that his wife has left him for another man and wants to see and care for his children. Yet Alex testifies that the man is not capable to be trusted with the children. After the divorce is final, he tries to get the man to get professional help for his manic anger. Instead, the man starts to stalk Alex, the lawyer, and the ex-wife.

At the same time, an old friend, a pre-eminent oncologist, asks Alex to come to the unit and visit with a family from near the Mexican border whose son is in an isolation unit. He has a very good chance to recover if the family can be convinced to leave him in the hospital. The boy's older sister is sullen, withdrawn, the mother is quiet and submissive to her husband, and the father is loud and overbearing. But shortly after Alex visits with Woody, the boy is snatched from the unit. The family has also disappeared, their hotel room ransacked, and the car left behind.

The community where the family lived is a small town with a sheriff who knows everyone. There is a small religious cult there, The Touch. Members of The Touch had visited Woody in the hospital. Now the fear is that Woody is hidden out with the cult receiving holistic treatment that won't touch his cancer. After the parent's bodies are found in shallow graves in Los Angeles, Alex pulls his friend from the L.A. homicide department, Milo Sturgis, to help.

Jonathan Kellerman gives the reader another good psychological thriller in Blood Test. The children's problems that are addressed in this novel are handled well so that the children are not ever victimized to the reader, but instead handled skillfully. Yet the book is powerful and keeps the reader pulled in.

You can find more about this book at .

When the Bough Breaks
Blood Test
Over the Edge
Silent Partner
Time Bomb
Private Eyes
Devil's Waltz
Bad Love
Self Defense
The Web
The Clinic
Survival of the Fittest
Monster
Dr. Death
Flesh and Blood
The Murder Book
A Cold Heart
Therapy
Rage
Gone