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  • When the Bough Breaks

When the Bough Breaks

Alex Delaware #1 / 43
by Jonathan Kellerman
When the Bough Breaks (Alex Delaware #1) by Jonathan Kellerman
★ 8.00 / 1
123456718910

The first Alex Delaware novel. It's a good one!

We meet Dr. Morton Handler who practiced a strange brand of psychiatry. Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old Melody Quinn.

Psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware's job is to unlock the terrible secret buried in Melody's memory. As the sinister shadows in the girl's mind begin to take shape, Alex discovers that the mystery touches a shocking incident in his own past. This connection is only the beginning, a single link in a forty-year-old conspiracy. And behind it lies an unspeakable evil that Alex Delaware must expose before it claims another innocent victim: Melody Quinn.

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ThrillerMysteryCrime FictionSuspense Thriller
Release date: April 1, 1985

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Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Kellerman was born in New York City in 1949 and grew up in Los Angeles. He helped work his way through UCLA as an editorial cartoonist, columnist, editor and freelance musician. As a senior, at the age of 22, he won a Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award for fiction.

Like his fictional protagonist, Alex Delaware, Jonathan received at Ph.D. in psychology at the age of 24, with a specialty in the treatment of children. He served internships in clinical psychology and pediatric psychology at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles and was a post-doctoral HEW Fellow in Psychology and Human Development at CHLA.

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IN 1975, Jonathan was asked by the hospital to conduct research into the psychological effects of extreme isolation (plastic bubble units) on children with cancer, and to coordinate care for these kids and their families. The success of that venture led to the establishment, in 1977 of the Psychosocial Program, Division of Oncology, the first comprehensive approach to the emotional aspects of pediatric cancer anywhere in the world. Jonathan was asked to be founding director and, along with his team, published extensively in the area of behavioral medicine. Decades later, the program, under the tutelage of one of Jonathan's former students, continues to break ground.

Jonathan's first published book was a medical text, PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CHILDHOOD CANCER, 1980. One year later, came a book for parents, HELPING THE FEARFUL CHILD.

In 1985, Jonathan's first novel, WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS, was published to enormous critical and commercial success and became a New York Times bestseller. BOUGH was also produced as a t.v. movie and won the Edgar Allan Poe and Anthony Boucher Awards for Best First Novel. Since then, Jonathan has published a best-selling crime novel every year, and occasionally, two a year. In addition, he has written and illustrated two books for children and a nonfiction volume on childhood violence, SAVAGE SPAWN (1999.) Though no longer active as a psychotherapist, he is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Psychology at University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.

Jonathan is married to bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman and they have four children.

Alex Delaware

Alex Delaware is a child psychologist. The series is set in Los Angeles.

Alex Delaware consists of forty-one books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of two more books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.

When the Bough Breaks (Alex Delaware #1)
★ 8.00 / 1
Blood Test (Alex Delaware #2)
★ 7.00 / 1
Over the Edge (Alex Delaware #3)
★ 7.00 / 1
Silent Partner (Alex Delaware #4)
★ 7.00 / 1
Time Bomb (Alex Delaware #5)
★ 7.00 / 1
Private Eyes (Alex Delaware #6)
★ 7.00 / 1
Devil's Waltz (Alex Delaware #7)
★ 8.00 / 1
Bad Love (Alex Delaware #8)
★ 8.00 / 1
Self-Defence (Alex Delaware #9)
★ 8.00 / 1
The Web (Alex Delaware #10)
★ 8.00 / 1
The Clinic (Alex Delaware #11)
★ 8.00 / 1
Survival of the Fittest (Alex Delaware #12)
★ 8.00 / 1
Monster (Alex Delaware #13)
★ 7.00 / 1
Doctor Death (Alex Delaware #14)
Unrated
Flesh and Blood (Alex Delaware #15)
Unrated
The Murder Book (Alex Delaware #16)
Unrated
A Cold Heart (Alex Delaware #17)
Unrated
Therapy (Alex Delaware #18)
Unrated
Rage (Alex Delaware #19)
Unrated
Gone (Alex Delaware #20)
Unrated
Obsession (Alex Delaware #21)
Unrated
Compulsion (Alex Delaware #22)
Unrated
Bones (Alex Delaware #23)
Unrated
Evidence (Alex Delaware #24)
Unrated
Deception (Alex Delaware #25)
Unrated
Mystery (Alex Delaware #26)
Unrated
Victims (Alex Delaware #27)
Unrated
Guilt (Alex Delaware #28)
Unrated
Killer (Alex Delaware #29)
Unrated
Motive (Alex Delaware #30)
Unrated
Breakdown (Alex Delaware #31)
Unrated
Heartbreak Hotel (Alex Delaware #32)
Unrated
Night Moves (Alex Delaware #33)
Unrated
The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34)
Unrated
The Museum of Desire (Alex Delaware #35)
Unrated
Serpentine (Alex Delaware #36)
Unrated
City of the Dead (Alex Delaware #37)
Unrated
Unnatural History (Alex Delaware #38)
Unrated
The Ghost Orchid (Alex Delaware #39)
⧗ 8.00 / 1
Open Season (Alex Delaware #40)
Unrated
Jigsaw (Alex Delaware #41)
⧗ 7.50 / 2
Malice (Alex Delaware #42)
⧗ 8.00 / 2
Alex Delaware Book 43 (Alex Delaware #43)
Unrated


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