It looks like the Kellerman Crime Writing Enterprise is transitioning from an LA<\/strong> child psychologist crime-fighter to an Alameda County<\/strong> coroner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I can’t say I’ll miss hero child psychologist Alex Delaware<\/strong>. He always seemed kind of wooden to me. The stories were fun in spite of him! \ud83d\ude42 I haven’t encountered anybody of his lovable-ness in the Edison novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our new hero is Clay Edison<\/strong>, Alameda County Coroner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m a Nor Cal guy, so the Berkeley Hills<\/strong> setting is way more congenial to me than the Los Angeles Hills<\/strong> setting of the Delaware novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alameda County is a big place! Clay Edison is the County Coroner for Alameda County. As the book explains it, anybody who turns up dead in Alameda County generates a call to the County Coroner’s office, and a coroner has to come out in person and examine the body and perform the rituals required by the State of California – confirm identity, pronounce dead, decide cause of death, notify kin, dispose of the body, signing off on all the above by handing in the death certificate. It’s a lot of depressing-sounding stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The event of the book is that a former Cal professor fell down his stairs and died. As the Coroner on duty Clay was called out, and being the kind of guy he is, he got involved. I’ve learned a lot about what coroners do! The plot has sort of progressed – there a very large mentally unwell young guy who may or may not have pushed the professor down the stairs and who may or may not have done the brutal murder that started professor’s downfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think I have mentioned before that in my opinion, the part of novel-crafting that Kellerman senior is least<\/em> adept at is believable emotions from his protagonists. They have interesting thing to say, but they are pretty wooden in their emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a funny bit where Clay was late-night calling the hot daughter he’s gotten involved with and it became clear that she was with another guy. I loved this for some reason! Normal human things like that never happen to Kellerman heroes! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in the day, our hero Clay was a starting point guard for the Cal Bears<\/strong>. (Way before Jason Kidd! \ud83d\ude42 So there is a thread of basketball consciousness that is very comfortble to me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clay Edison often thinks in basketball metaphors! Clay is stumbling towards a theory that the giant mentally challenged black kid is NOT the perpetrator of all the crimes, maybe it was the dead Prof’s Teaching Assistant (who is also dead for reasons I forget right now).<\/p>\n\n\n\n if this is true, it means the cops on the original case fucked up. He talks to the (now retired) officer in charge and pisses him off so badly that he takes a swing at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (p 258) What’s true at the free throw line is true for a punch: the flatter the trajectory, the more accurate it has to be. … aim straight for my nose your margin of error shrinks. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n More of those baskball metaphors please! You’re caressing my sweet spot with that stuff!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well the new-look Kellermans certainly are trying to make their heroes love-lives more interesting<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clay had a very successful dinner with a nice woman … I confess I do not remember how she fits into the plot … but on the way home to a possible romantic jackpot with her, the too tightly wound daughter from above appears out of his shrubbery to destroy the mood of the evening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pretty funny, really. Not to Clay, but to me. \ud83d\ude42 The most memorable romance event I can remember in a Delaware novel. To be clear, I’ve never read a Faye<\/em> Kellerman<\/em> book, so I don’t know how she rolls. \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another timeless quote: <\/p>\n\n\n\n (p 338) Nobody wants a pit bull that don’t listen to instructions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n A real treat for me personally, the next 50 pages happen in Reno-Tahoe. This was interesting to be because I spent 15 years living less than a mile from where he was, and had wonderful experiences not at all like his. Oh well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book wraps up pretty quickly after that. Clay found that the kid did nothing criminally wrong, so it’s all good with the kid. The last two pages are Clay going to a really depressing-sounding Central Valley prison where his neer-do-well brother is doing time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let the healing begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prologue It looks like the Kellerman Crime Writing Enterprise is transitioning from an LA child psychologist crime-fighter to an Alameda County coroner. I can’t say I’ll miss hero child psychologist Alex Delaware. He always seemed kind of wooden to me. The stories were fun in spite of him! \ud83d\ude42 But I WILL miss Milo the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12,59,96],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-berkeley","tag-kellerman","tag-noir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1788,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions\/1788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
But I WILL miss Milo<\/strong> the slovenly gay LA detective. He was the best part of the Delaware novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I just looked it up, it stretches along the east side of the San Francisco Bay from Albany to Fremont and east to Livermore.
In this book, most of the action happens in Berkeley<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Book<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Turns out the dead guy has a hot daughter that Edison slooowly gets involved with (Kellerman isn’t great writing about romance).<\/p>\n\n\n\n200 pages in<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
He challenges a colleague to a shooting contest for some silly prize. This endears him to me more than I can say!<\/p>\n\n\n\n250 pages in<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
290 pages in<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
320 pages in<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Clay sniffs out that the big kid at the heart of the plot might be in Reno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
He’s pretty hard on Panther Valley \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n\n\n\n