Double Homicide

by Faye Kellerman, Jonathan Kellerman, Johnathan Kellerman

Book Overview

For the first time ever, bestselling novelists Jonathan and Faye Kellermen team up to deliver the launch book in a thrilling new series of short crime novels. This book--printed as a reversible volume... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446614122
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 1.0" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

An interesting idea, executed uniquely

This is a strange novel, probably a first all around for detective fiction. The Kellermans are well-known to detective fiction fans. Jonathan's been writing his Alex Delaware series for about two decades now, and is one of the best-regarded writers in the genre. Faye's not too far behind, and between the two of them they've published 39 novels. I would imagine they're close to the most popular couple in publishing, unless there's a couple I don't know. This is, as a result, something that I'd wondered about (why they didn't collaborate before) and here's the result. It's strange, on a number of levels, but it's a good book anyway. For one thing, this isn't a single story, it's two. The two novellas don't share anything beyond their authors, brevity, and (vaguely) subject matter. Story one follows a pair of homicide detectives in Boston as they investigate the shooting death of a college basketball star. Story two similarly follows a pair of detectives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as they investigate the murder of a prominent local art dealer. While everything about the stories is unique, there are similarities in structure. Both of the plots are really short stories, stretched to a hundred and fifty pages by more character development than you usually see in a short story. Both stories involve a pair of detectives with personal problems and issues, and both pairs of detectives are studied in some detail. In Boston, the black single mom is worried that her younger son has a gun in his backpack, while the middle-aged white guy resents that his wife's in Florida visiting her family while he's stuck in Boston in the winter. In Santa Fe, the Indian ruminates on his heritage and learns about his father's pottery, while the transplanted New Yorker is essentially treading water personally, knowing he can never reconnect permanently with his ex-wife. Frankly these stories are odd, together or separately. I didn't have the difficulty figuring out what happened in the second book at the end, as one other reviewer had. These stories are unusual in several ways, more character-driven than usual, and a strange length that's not much used these days. You used to have writers (John Creasey comes to mind, and Louis L'Amour) who wrote stories that were 150 pages long, but not any more. As a result this is an unusual departure for these two writers, and mostly (anyway) welcome.

Change-Up Character-Exploring Novellas from the Kellermans

Before thinking about buying or reading this book, please realize three things: 1. This book contains none of the Kellermans' usual characters. 2. There are two novellas involved rather than a novel. 3. The stories emphasize incident-revealing aspects of the characters of the police, the victims and the perpetrators rather than the "mystery," the "procedures," or the "backdrop." So if you want more of what you've loved before from the Kellermans, look elsewhere. However, if you love reading about interesting new characters and thought-provoking themes expressed in novellas, you will have a hard time finding better work. I thought that Santa Fe was the better of the two stories. The characters were more original and written with more love. The Boston characters were too hard-edged and cold to be fully appealing. For those who insist on having a mystery to their police procedurals, Boston will be the more appealing story. Although I clearly saw a blending of the two styles in the stories, Boston felt more like Ms. Kellerman and Santa Fe felt more like Dr. Kellerman. I'm glad that the Kellermans fought off what was probably a panicky reaction from their publisher when they proposed this work. Although many of their fans will hate it, I had fun. For me, the best part of the two stories came in the obvious morales about how we lead our lives. The victims contributed to their own deaths. Santa Fe's victim is a wealthy art dealer who treats others like objects to be manipulated. Boston's victim is a young college basketball star in the full flush of the glory following his greatest game. Pride was the sin for each. Like Icarus, each flew too close to the sun . . . and crashed to the earth in a fatal fall. Enjoy!

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

Sante Fe: Detectives Darrel Two Moons and Steve katz have their dinner interrupted when they are called out to a murder scene. Someone has killed high society art gallery owner Larry Olafson. Olafson had been well known among the East Coast literati and had two Galleries in New York. Back East he'd made a couple supposedly honest mistakes about the provenances of some paintings, though that's not why he had claimed he moved to the Southwest. No, it was a change of pace he was after, well now his pace had sure been changed, but by who? It seems he's been involved with some causes that have caused him to make a few enemies and the detectives find the painting vault in the dead man's gallery open, with his inventory log missing. It looks like maybe a thief might have done the deed, but maybe there is something more going on here. Boston: Dorothy Benton is a single mother with two sons, one is in college and a plays on his school's winning basketball team, the other is in high school and having a difficult time of it. Dorothy is also a police detective. She does her best, juggling career and motherhood, trying to be good at both and part of being a good mother is going to all of her sons basketball games with her partner Micky McCain. However after one game there is a shootout downtown and several of the team players are involved, including the star forward, who has been killed. During the course of the investigation the medical examiner finds something strange and now the investigation isn't very cut and dried at all. This is a two cover book, Boston Novel on one side, but if you flip it over you get the Santa Story. Two books for the price of one. Two, good books by the way. Two fast-past mysterie thrillers that will keep you guessing. Yes, this is a good deal, Two, two, two books in one.

A recommended 2 for 1 deal

Everything old is new again. In the 1950s and 1960s Ace Books published what they called "Ace Doubles," consisting of two short novels joined together, each with separate covers on the front and back. Finish one novel, turn it over and start another. There were a couple of marketing methods to this madness: the consumers felt like they were getting more bang for their buck, and retailers would often allocate two spaces on the shelf to the volume, one for each cover. DOUBLE HOMICIDE by Jonathan and Faye Kellerman puts this concept to great use as it heralds their first official collaborative effort --- or shall we say efforts --- consisting of IN THE LAND OF GIANTS and STILL LIFE. Don't pick up DOUBLE HOMICIDE expecting to encounter environs or characters one normally associates with either of the Kellermans. IN THE LAND OF GIANTS is set in Boston, while STILL LIFE takes place in Santa Fe. Both short novels do share some similarities, if not commonalties. Each one introduces a set of homicide detectives who on the surface are mismatched, but who manage to work together and get the job done. The job, in both cases, involves the investigation of a murder a few weeks before Christmas. IN THE LAND OF GIANTS ostensibly involves the murder of a college basketball star. Boston Homicide Detectives Michael MacCain and Doris Sylvestor soon find, however, that his death and its subsequent implications involve far more than the apparent random violence that his passing would otherwise indicate. Of the two novels, IN THE LAND OF GIANTS suffers a bit from this particular format. The plot and the characters seem to be slightly cramped by the page limitation. MacCain and Sylvester --- MacCain in particular --- are extremely interesting characters, and if the Kellermans choose to revisit this format and these characters in the future, further acquaintance would be most welcome. STILL LIFE is the far better of the two novels. Darryl Two Moons and Steve Katz are mismatched Santa Fe homicide detectives who find that their holiday season is disturbed by the murder of Larry Olafson, an art gallery owner whose business practices and political activities have made him unpopular with a number of people in the area. The contrasts between Two Moons and Katz are quietly amusing --- Two Moons is grumpily rock steady, while Katz is almost too flaky to be a cop --- but the understated, dogged manner in which the two go about their business is a joy to behold. The story is fairly straightforward and well-told, with the Kellermans doing an excellent job of character development and atmospheric description within the economy of space this format affords. DOUBLE HOMICIDE is a most welcome effort that will hopefully be repeated on an annual (at least!) basis. This is a format that other writers may wish to adapt in order to test the waters for efforts that may not fit the definition of a full-length novel yet are too promising to consign to unpublished oblivion. Recommended.

Double Jeopardy

I am a fan of Faye Hellerman's mysteries. She and her husband, Jonathan, another author, have collaborated on a double-sided novel. Two murder mysteries on separate sides of the country. The cites happen to be my two favorite cities, Boston and Santa Fe. It is difficult to tell if Faye Kellerman wrote the Boston novel. But, it sounds like her. Dorothy Breton is a Boston detective and has two son's one of which is a ballplayer on the Boston Ferris College basketball team. This team is something special, and the specialness is a player named Julius. Dorothy invites her partner, Michael McCain to the big game. Boston Ferris wins, and the team goes out to celebrate. Dorothy is called a few hours later by her son to let her know something horrible has happened- Julius has been murdered at a night club. Dorothy and Michael begin the job of learning the who, what and why. They get involved in the family business of the Boston Ferris team, and the opposing team and being the good detectives they are they find the murderer in a surprise ending-that is more of a shock than surprise. Darrell Two Moons and Steve Katz, two Santa Fe policemen are eating at their favorite restaurant when the call comes in that a very famous art dealer man has been murdered. This starts the story of a man no one liked; least of all his two sons and ex-wife. As the policemen dig deeper they find that almost no one liked this man, and that some of his friends were more disliked than he was. But who would hate him so much as to kill him? The two policeman in the midst of the investigation, discover almsot more about themselves than they do of this man Lawrence Olafson. They find the murderer, of course, and it is not much a surprise- but then again maybe it is. This double-sided novel is a good PR ploy. The Boston story was better written and more interesting. The Santa Fe story had some interesting character studies. Neither story involved much of the city beyond some basic information. I like to be able to relate to the city in a novel and walk along the same streets as the characters. All in all a pretty good novel, very short and sweet. Neither novel is one of the best, nor one I hope this couple repeats. I like Faye Kellerman's characters and storylines- let's keep this family's murder mysteries separate, prisrob