TRUE DETECTIVES
Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Books
Thriller
ISBN: 9780345495143
TRUE DETECTIVES is a brilliant novel and may well be Jonathan Kellerman’s best work to date.
Let’s start with the primary characters. Moses Reed and Aaron Fox were introduced in 2008’s BONES. Interesting secondary characters in that book, Kellerman fleshes them out and gives them living, breathing substance in TRUE DETECTIVES. These half-brothers are very different from each other. Reed is a flashy, stylish dresser who is well ahead of the GQ curve and possessed of an observant eye such that he immediately “gets” Dr. Alex Delaware’s digs from a once-over of the outside. Fox is comfortable in undistinguished clothing and is not so much unstylish as unconcerned. Reed is an extremely successful private investigator with a quietly A-list clientele and a contact sheet of equal quality. Fox is an L.A. homicide detective, a de facto protégé of Milo Sturgis, with a dogged tenacity fueled by a desire to do well for the sake of the job.
They do not get along. Although Fox is white and Reed is of mixed race, their racial difference is not the source of their disagreement, though it would have been easy enough for the author to go down that route. Kellerman, however, does not take shortcuts when exploring the fraternal relationship. He makes you believe that race is not the etiology for the problems between them; it goes deeper than that. And when Fox and Reed realize that their respective cases throw them uneasily together, they find that they have to confront their differences --- and themselves.
But that is only one element that makes TRUE DETECTIVES such a joy. There is a real plot here, buoyed by Kellerman’s L.A. triptych tour of the restaurants and attractions of Los Angeles --- from the boulevards to the side streets and all points in between. The focal point is a private investigation of a missing person initiated by Reed at the behest of one of his regular clients, an enigmatic Russian expatriate who he knows only as Mr. Dmitri. Reed is retained by Dmitri to investigate the disappearance of Caitlin Frostig, the adult daughter of one of Dmitri’s accountants. The job brings Reed into contact with Fox, who was the primary investigator on the case and who wound up with nothing but dead ends. The unsolved case grates at Fox, as does his brother’s interest in it, so the two form an uneasy and occasionally unwilling alliance to determine the fate of the missing woman.
Caitlin’s boyfriend seems to be a likely suspect, and their investigation of him soon reveals that he is a gofer for an almost washed-up actor who has a load of problems, not the least of which is the company he keeps. When Caitlin’s disappearance appears to be related to the unsolved murder of a prostitute, Fox and Reed soon find that their investigation is leading to the highest echelons of the Hollywood power structure and beyond, though to places they never could have anticipated.
The aspect of TRUE DETECTIVES that makes it an addicting read is the manner in which the two brothers work so well together by virtue of their very separate but compellingly equal ways. It is their differences that ultimately fit the fruits of the their labors together, like pieces in a puzzle. And this is very much a Fox and Reed book, if you will; Sturgis and Delaware make brief, if important appearances, enough to provide a sense of continuity but not enough to steal the show from the brothers. Not that they necessarily could. Fox and Reed may be the most interesting detective team you will encounter this year, and TRUE DETECTIVES is the perfect novel to officially launch them. I would be happy to see more of them, and Dmitri, in the future.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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