Cover image of "Unnatural History,"

Jonathan Kellerman’s series of Alex Delaware mysteries debuted in 1985. Book number 40 appeared in 2025, making the series one of the longest-running in the genre—and no wonder. His protagonist, Dr. Alex Delaware, is a child psychologist like the author himself, privy to a lifetime of case histories. And the books are set in Los Angeles, with its unbounded possibilities for mystery and mayhem. Kellerman makes the most of it. He uses the close friendship that has developed between Dr. Delaware and homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis as a springboard to explore the pathologies of life in the nation’s second largest city. In Unnatural History, the 38th entry in the series, Alex and Milo tackle the murder of a secretive photographer engaged in a project to engage the city’s homeless. And in pursuing their investigation, they examine the extraordinary diversity within LA’s homeless encampments.

An investigation that involves many of LA’s homeless encampments

Does my use of the word diversity surprise you? After all, don’t most of us regard the homeless as either mentally ill or addicted to drugs or alcohol, if not both? It’s true, of course, that the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates approximately two out of every three homeless adults in the US has a mental health disorder. And about one in every three is addicted to alcohol and/or drugs, according to the American Addiction Centers. Many, of course, fall into both groups. But many is not all. Others have simply fallen on hard times. And among the homeless population in general, there is great diversity in ethnicity, religion, educational background, and, of course, intelligence. Jonathan Kellerman brings this reality to iight as he describes Alex and Milo’s investigation, which is largely focused on the unhoused.

Unnatural History (Alex Delaware #38) by Jonathan Kellerman (2023) 345 pages ★★★★☆

A homeless encampment in Los Angeles similar to ones that figure in this novel. Image: Brittany Murray – Press-Telegram

Who is the culprit? A homeless person—or someone in the billionaire’s family?

Of course, Unnatural History is a murder mystery. Despite the author’s careful attention to the homeless characters interviewed in the course of the story, the book is in fact a police procedural in which Alex and Milo attempt to learn who murdered Donny Klement, the unfortunate young photographer. We learn at the outset that he is one of the children of Viktor Klement, a reclusive billionaire businessman. And every one of Donny’s siblings is, in fact, a half-sibling, the unique issue of one of their father’s five brief marriages. The dynamics in the Klement family, then, are central to the story. There’s plenty of room here for surprises—and Kellerman delivers them beautifully.

About the author

Jonathan Kellerman. Image: Alta

Like the protagonist of his 40 Alex Delaware mysteries to date, Jonathan Kellerman is a child psychologist. He continues to practice the profession as a clinical professor of pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. However, he quit his private practice in psychology in 1990 to write full-time, having published the first of his Alex Delaware novels in 1985. He has also written or co-authored (with his son Jesse Kellerman) 17 other novels, both mysteries and children’s books, as well as five nonfiction works.

Kellerman was born in New York City in 1949 but has lived in Los Angeles since the age of nine. His wife, Faye Kellerman, and their son, Jesse Kellerman, are all bestselling crime novelists. And all three are practicing Orthodox Jews. They have three other children, one of whom is also a published writer. The Kellermans were married in 1972, when Faye was just shy of her 20th birthday.

Check out Top Los Angeles mysteries and thrillers.

The most recent novel in this series that I reviewed is Night Moves – Alex Delaware #33 (A truly baffling murder stumps Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis).

Among the other Alex Delaware novels I’ve reviewed here are the first three:

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