Over the Edge (An Alex Delaware Novel Book 3)

Page after page of detailed descriptions of people and places. Massive amounts of detail on drugs and going for many pages before any significant progress in the story happens. Boring descriptions of psychiatric procedures in great detail. The book is boring and I had to force myself to finish it, Many times I thought of just deleting it.

Can't really describe this as a thriller even though characters die and lives hang in the balance of a successful investigation. With large portions of the book weighed down by scholarly explanations of psychosis, schizophrenia and psychotropics, the book reads more like a college entry level psych class at times. But I enjoy Kellerman's prose along with his well drawn characters. I have a strong interest in psychology which helped keep me engaged to the satisfying conclusion.

I had begun this book with much anticipation of enjoying it. It's the second book by Kellerman that I've read. Unfortunately, I was shocked to find Kellerman's cynical and extremist views woven into the story itself. The main character is listening to the radio while driving. To quote him:

"The song was followed by a commercial for an abortion clinic selling itself as a feminist health center."

I found Kellerman's attack on women's health centers utterly reprehensible. Groups such as PP have provided a full range of health-care service to women for decades: cancer screening, heart evaluations, diabetes care, mammograms, and many, many other contributions to women's health care.. Only 3% of PP's budget has ever gone to abortion, and now even less.The frontal attack on women's reproductive rights is a contentious one in our society, but Kellerman's book is no place for him to pimp his ideology This uncalled-for attack on women's health care centers--called derisively as a "feminist health care center" is disgusting and extremist for an author to include. Whether one agrees with Kellerman's cynical stab at women's health centers or not is beside the point. His book is thoroughly discredited in his effort to forward his views on reproductive health care. He may have strong feelings about contraception and abortion, but a detective mystery is NO place for him to trot out his anti-abortion ideology.

Yes, Kellerman is entitled to believe whatever he wants, but to distort the core purpose of women's health centers is utterly despicable. At that point, I threw the book across the room and vowed that I will NEVER read Kellerman again. It is inconceivable to me that he would trash women's health-care centers as nothing more than abortion mills when they have offered decades of full health care to women, men, and families. I am ashamed of Kellerman, just ashamed that he would write this in his novel--a throw-away stab at women's health care clinics, so distorting their overall mission to help women in all stages of health care. Shame on Kellerman. I will NEVER read his books again, and I will notify all readers I know to avoid his works in the future. Shame on Kellerman. I'm done with him. SHAME!!!!!

I was hoping for insight into the scrambled arena of mental health, what I got was a boring story filled with too many descriptions of characters, what they were eating, how the room looked etc. On the plus side, Mr Kellerman's descriptions were delightful.