A review by weaselweader
Time Bomb by Jonathan Kellerman
2.0
“A sniper had opened fire on a crowded playground, but was gunned down before any children were hurt.”
TIME BOMB, the fifth in Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series, was written in 1990. So its opening scenes of a school shooting, the “good guy with a gun” scenario saving the day, and the plot segue into the black holes of far right-wing hatred – neo-Nazism, racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia – held out the promise of a thriller that was prescient and thrilling today in a way that Kellerman could not possibly have predicted when he put his proverbial author’s pen to paper over two decades ago. Sadly, the plot is driven purely by emotions, by that hatred, and it seems appropriate that Alex Delaware, as a psychologist, puzzles out the solution to the thriller solely on the basis of psychoanalysis and the extended psychological autopsy of the young girl who was thought to be the original shooter. The plot unfolds at the pace of a turgid cerebral snail and the novel’s only saving grace is the heartwarming development of a new love interest for Delaware in the person of the school principal, Linda Overstreet.
TIME BOMB was a chore to finish and, while I haven’t put paid to the Alex Delaware series yet, I can’t say that this one makes me look forward to PRIVATE EYES, #6 in the series, with any degree of anticipation.
Paul Weiss
TIME BOMB, the fifth in Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series, was written in 1990. So its opening scenes of a school shooting, the “good guy with a gun” scenario saving the day, and the plot segue into the black holes of far right-wing hatred – neo-Nazism, racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia – held out the promise of a thriller that was prescient and thrilling today in a way that Kellerman could not possibly have predicted when he put his proverbial author’s pen to paper over two decades ago. Sadly, the plot is driven purely by emotions, by that hatred, and it seems appropriate that Alex Delaware, as a psychologist, puzzles out the solution to the thriller solely on the basis of psychoanalysis and the extended psychological autopsy of the young girl who was thought to be the original shooter. The plot unfolds at the pace of a turgid cerebral snail and the novel’s only saving grace is the heartwarming development of a new love interest for Delaware in the person of the school principal, Linda Overstreet.
TIME BOMB was a chore to finish and, while I haven’t put paid to the Alex Delaware series yet, I can’t say that this one makes me look forward to PRIVATE EYES, #6 in the series, with any degree of anticipation.
Paul Weiss