Jonathan Kellerman is one of my favorite authors. His books are awesome, especially the ones in the Alex Delaware series. Rage just recently came out in hardback. Alex Delaware is a psychologist who works with the police, usually with his friend, homicide detective Milo Sturgis. His latest case involves two kids who killed a toddler, reminiscent of the real case in England several years ago where the two 10-year-old boys did the same thing. In the book, Alex evaluated both of the boys for the court. One of the kids was killed in prison shortly after he arrived. The other gets out after eight years. The book opens with a call to Alex from the surviving boy, Rand, shortly after he gets out of prison. He asks Alex to meet with him, saying he has something important to tell him. Alex agrees to meet with him, but Rand never shows up. Alex later discovers that Rand was murdered. In attempting to solve his murder, Alex and Milo look at the details of his crime, suspecting that his past has caught up with him. In doing so, they learn that the crime was way more complex than two kids grabbing a toddler who was a stranger to them. They learn of the fertility problems that had plagued the toddler's parents, and two seemingly earnest divinity students who aren't what they seem.
Here's what was most interesting to me about this book. The crime in England which apparently was the inspiration for this story had no clear-cut cause. Violent movies and factors in the boys' backgrounds were cited as contributing factors, but it's not as though other kids haven't had similar difficulties and managed not to kill anyone. And these boys were only 10 years old. In the book, this "How could this happen?" feeling was partially removed by the factor of adult influence. It doesn't diminish the horror of the crime, but evil adult influence is easier to understand than two very young kids committing such an awful crime on their own.
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