Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis tackle an “unsolvable” cold case

Milo Sturgis is not your cookie-cutter homicide detective. He’s gay, for one thing. But there’s more. A lieutenant with the LAPD’s highest close rate, he’s claimed a privileged existence largely insulated from demands by his superiors. Except that this time around an assistant chief is insisting that he take on a 36-year-old cold case because someone influential has gotten to her. There’s no way out. And, to make matters worse, this old murder case appears unsolvable. Three homicide detectives before him have bombed out, finding no meaningful clues. So, it’s time for Milo to call on his best friend, psychologist Alex Delaware, to help him dig deeply into the murky circumstances surrounding the case and learn what those three other detectives might have discovered that never entered the record. Thus begins the 36th entry in Jonathan Kellerman’s bestselling series of Alex Delaware thrillers, Serpentine.

The bare-bones set-up

Here’s the deal: Ellie Barker is a well-to-do businesswoman who wants to learn the truth about her mother, Dorothy Swoboda. When Ellie was a small child, Dorothy’s body was discovered in a burning Cadillac below Mulholland Drive. She was shot to death. With no clues other than the fact she’d disappeared, the LAPD put its investigation on hold. But Ellie, now in early middle age, still wants to know what happened. She has only a single photo of her mother. It’s a snapshot in which Dorothy wears a serpentine-stone necklace that gives the novel its title. And that’s all Milo and Alex have to go on.

Serpentine (Alex Delaware #36) by Jonathan Kellerman (2021) 392 pages ★★★★☆

Photo of a serpentine necklace — *A serpentine necklace like this one provides one of many clues that eventually lead Alex and Milo to the solution of this baffling cold case. Image: Kate Maller Jewelry*

An “unsolvable” case turns deadly

Milo and Alex soon learn that the manner which the LAPD came under pressure to solve the case is significant. Because Ellie had been attending a charity dinner and a multimillionaire donor at her table overheard her talking about her mother’s long-ago death. It was the donor who’d called Milo’s assistant chief. And the woman with whom Ellie had been talking turns out to be the daughter of a wealthy man with whom Dorothy had been living until her death. The connection will prove central to the solution to the case. But that’s only one aspect of a very unusual case.

What Milo and Alex uncover is far stranger than a routine unsolved homicide. Dorothy Swoboda was not Ellie’s mother’s real name. And in fact she may not have been her mother at all. She had lived a life on the fringes of society, involved with grifters and con artists. As Alex and Milo dig deeper, new questions emerge: Was the woman in the Cadillac really who everyone believed she was? And why does their investigation seem to stir up fresh danger decades later?

Badge of the LAPD's West LA Division — *Lieutenant Milo Sturgis works out of the LAPD’s Western Division. Image: Twitter*

Then bodies start dropping as they get closer to the truth

The trail leads through buried secrets that mysteriously trigger new murders. It’s a long while before Alex’s trained insight and Milo’s methodical police work expose a long-concealed web of deception and identify the killer. Along the way, Kellerman delivers on his trademark. The close friendship between Alex and Milo. Snappy dialogue between them and in their interviews with sometimes evasive witnesses. And a tour through LA’s exclusive neighborhoods.

About the author

Photo of Jonathan Kellerman, author of , with his wife. — *Jonathan Kellerman and his novelist wife, Faye Kellerman, in 2013. Image: New York Times*

Jonathan Kellerman has lived in Los Angeles since 1958. Born in New York City in 1949, he moved there with his parents when he was nine years old. He earned a BA in Psychology at UCLA and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Southern California. He went to work there at the Keck School of Medicine, eventually becoming a clinical professor of pediatrics. Kellerman worked as a child psychologist for many years until 1990, when he closed his private practice to write full time. To date, he has written 41 novels in the Alex Delaware series. Kellerman is married to crime novelist Faye Kellerman. Their son Jesse Kellerman is also a crime novelist.

Among the many Alex Delaware novels I’ve reviewed are the first three as well as four more recent books: