Great read! a good storyline with detailed topic that was both sensitive and interesting..had good narrative with some well developed and defined characters (paperback!)

This was the beginning of it all! Jonathan Kellerman pulled me into the Alex Delaware series, hook, line, sinker. If you haven't checked it out. Do so! So good!

A thoroughly engaging, intricately plotted thriller to keep the reader thinking. I will definitely be reading more of the Alex Delaware novels.

3.75. I have become a fan of Faye Kellerman's Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus mystery series, so I decided to read her husband Jonathan's first book about Dr. Alex Delaware. Even though both series are about detectives, they are different in scope. Whereas Decker has been a cop for 20 years and looking to move up ranks, Delaware is a young, retired child psychologist who befriends a detective named Milo Sturgis and helps out on his cases. Additionally, Rina loves to get involved in Decker's cases,...

My first book by this author and the first book in a series of thirty five! Bliss:)Alex Delaware is a child psychologist who finds himself helping the police as a special consultant. However he does not stop at consulting but gets totally involved in solving the case himself. There is a lot of action and some very nasty deaths. I liked the book very much especially the characters and the fast paced story. I felt the ending let it down a little with too many pages of the baddies confessing everyt...

It was unbelievable of me never to have heard the household name of Jonathan Kellerman. I read his latest book in the series of Alex Delaware, then I nabbed the first book and compared them.I thought there was too much doctoring going on. Too many people to be interviewed. But in the course of vigilante duty, our hero Alex hurts the opposition and also gets hurt in return.I think among all the ex-shrinks whose books I've read, this author's resonates the most with me. Humanism is so important in...

Introducing Dr Alex Delaware, child psychologist, retired in his mid-30s through burn-out, and drawn into Detective Milo Sturgis’ murder mystery because of a small seven-year-old witness, Melody Quinn.Alex was bored so when Milo arrived with his gruesome case, Alex wasn’t sure whether to be interested or disgusted. But - with his consultant badge - he joined Milo in the hunt for the killer and while Milo went off in one direction, Alex read through files, made phone calls and followed the clues....

This wasn't the first Alex Delaware novel I'd read. I had the good fortune of being introduced to Jonathan Kellerman with Monster. And what an introduction it was. In my experience, the Alex Delaware novels are a bit hit and miss. Some are really good. Some just aren't.This novel, however, was a winner of the Edgar award, and being a bit of a fan I decided to start the series from scratch. All things considered, and keeping the character development of Alex Delaware in mind, that is probably the...

This is the first book in Jonathan Kellerman's long-running series featuring Alex Delaware, a child psychologist. Burned out, Alex has retired from his practice at the age of thirty-three after consulting in a particularly unsettling case involving the young victims of a serial pedophile. The children are well on the road to recovery, but Alex is in desperate need of some down time.But then Dr. Morton Handler, a psychiatrist, is brutally murdered along with his girlfriend in the apartment that t...

This is the book that introduced child psychologist Alex Delaware ... along with his girlfriend Robin and homicide Detective Milo Sturgis. Originally published in 1985 there will soon be a 35th book in the series. The later books seemed to have lost direction (perhaps there are only so many story lines for a child psychologist + homicide investigation) but this first book is excellent (and for me well worth a reread).Alex has retired from practice at the age of thirty-three after working with th...

An entertaining beach read, When the Bough Breaks netted Kellerman an Edgar award for best debut novel and spawned a series still that's still commercially viable after three plus decades. The writing is smooth and inoffensive without ever being great and I can see why Kellerman became successful. He writes lucidly, keeps the pace moving with a nice balance of intrigue, humor and action. However there is no way the protagonist - a retired child psychologist, Alex Delaware can keep being injected...

I love Milo Sturgis. I like Dr. Alex Delaware. Kellerman is a great genre author, and I will recommend him highly to everyone unless you are a cozy reader or hung up on propriety. Alex breaks the rules in the manner of 1970's TV private eyes who were fighting the good fight, like in 'The Rockford Files' or 'Magnum P. I.' He is a star, someone who can do anything, except walk away from criminality. He makes mistakes, but he is one of those individuals who is very smart, athletic and lucky. Despit...

3 ½ stars. Slightly above average. Ok as a mystery.The beginning was very good. I liked the way Alex investigated. Example, Alex needs to talk to a 7 year old girl who saw something. The girl’s mother is ignorant and poor and keeps the daughter on drugs to keep her quiet. Alex talks to the girl’s Doctor who prescribes the drugs. The Doctor won’t stop the drugs, he has a huge ego, he talks down to Alex. Alex befriends the girl. They go to the beach and a merry-go-round. There’s a whole mini story...

Based in L.A., it's the first in the Alex Delaware thriller series and revolving around a child psychologist who took early retirement five-and-a-half months ago.In 1986, When the Bough Breaks won the Anthony and Edgar Awards for Best First Novel.My TakeSneaky. Kellerman slides his story under your skin, smooth, easy, no great jolts and with Alex’s perspective in first person protagonist point-of-view. Once he has you hooked on the intriguing characters, then he begins to slide in those other ho...

When the Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman is the first book in the Alex Delaware Mystery series. Child psychologist Alex Delaware is lured out of retirement to consult with the police in the investigation of the murder of a psychiatrist and his girlfriend potentially witnessed by seven year old Melody Quinn. I had read several books in this series in the past but it was good to start at the beginning and understand how the friendship between Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis developed a...

Alex Delaware was brilliant in the beginning. A child psychologist who went where no crime 'detective' had been before. Melody Quinn is a seven-year-old witness to crimes committed by a psychiatrist who has manipulated and extorted his patients for years.Jonathan Kellerman had a beautiful beginning with Alex.