City of the Dead: An Alex Delaware Novel

"Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis must uncover the connection between a brutally murdered psychologist and a victim they're unable to identify in this electrifying thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense. Two burly movers are heading back into Los Angeles from the dusty wasteland of Ojai when they hit a man-a naked man who appears out of nowhere. Master detective Milo Sturgis is called to the scene and senses immediately that something is amiss. As the Tesla-driving denizens of this well-off neighborhood begin to congregate, shielding their children's eyes or craning to get a better view, Milo realizes there's no way to identify this body. There's no ID. The victim could be anybody. And that's when Milo calls upon psychologist Alex Delaware. Milo and Alex get their first lead from a crotchety old man who lives down the block. If the victim was naked, he could have come from her house-a woman who has men coming in and out at all hours of the day and night. But what the duo sees from outside her barred windows will make things take another complicated turn: It's a scene of incredible horror. She is lying on the kitchen floor; there is blood everywhere. And when they get a closer look, Alex realizes he knows this woman. She's a fellow psychologist. When traces of DNA found underneath her fingernails point to a man who is not the first victim, the detection really begins. . . "--
Court-consulting child psychologist Alex Delaware and homicide detective Milo Sturgis unravel a baffling mystery after a naked corpse in the street leads to the discovery of another murder, in the latest novel of the long-running series following Serpentine.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The past comes back to haunt psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis when they investigate a grisly double homicide and uncover an even more unspeakable motive in this riveting thriller from the bestselling master of suspense.Los Angeles is a city of sunlight, celebrity, and possibility. The L.A. often experienced by Homicide Lt. Detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware, is a city of the dead. Early one morning, the two of them find themselves in a neighborhood of pretty houses, pretty cars, and pretty people. The scene they encounter is anything but. A naked young man lies dead in the street, the apparent victim of a collision with a moving van hurtling through suburbia in the darkness. But any thoughts of accidental death vanish when a blood trail leads to a nearby home. Inside, a young woman lies butchered. The identity of the male victim and his role in the horror remain elusive, but that of the woman creates additional questions. And adding to the shock, Alex has met her while working a convoluted child custody case. Cordelia Gannett was a self-styled internet influencer who’d gotten into legal troubles by palming herself off as a psychologist. Even after promising to desist, she’s found a loophole and has continued her online career, aiming to amass clicks and ads by cyber-coaching and cyber-counseling people plagued with relationship issues. But upon closer examination, Alex and Milo discover that her own relationships are troublesome, including a tortured family history and a dubious personal past. Has that come back to haunt her in the worst way? Is the mystery man out in the street collateral damage or will he turn out to be the key to solving a grisly double homicide? As the psychologist and the detective explore L.A.'s meanest streets, they peel back layer after layer of secrets and encounter a savage, psychologically twisted, almost unthinkable motive for violence and bloodshed. This is classic Delaware: Alex, a man Milo has come to see as irreplaceable, at his most insightful and brilliant.