THE BUTCHER’S THEATER was my virgin voyage into Jonathan Kellerman territory. I put him on my “must-read” list --- where he has remained for over a quarter-century --- got all the Alex Delaware books that had been published since that time, and have kept pace ever since. Kellerman could be phoning in his stories at this point, but instead continues with each volume to meet or exceed the expectations created by his prior work, to favor his reading audience with some of his best prose thus far. Still, MOTIVE is a surprise. It’s clearly one of his best works to date.

The focus of the book is primarily, though by no means exclusively, on Milo Sturgis, the driven, idiosyncratic LAPD homicide detective who is Delaware’s best friend and occasional colleague. Sturgis was a quietly groundbreaking character when first introduced, a subtle rarity in a genre where expectations about what a homicide detective should and shouldn’t be often resulted in a stereotypical presentation of law enforcement personnel. Sturgis is hardly Steve Carella and doesn’t need to be; his driving and obsessive personality (usually) gets the job done.

"Kellerman appears at all stages of the book to have been truly enjoying himself in the telling, leading his detectives and readers merrily down different paths only to find that they are not so much at a dead end as simply...wrong."

What makes the opening of MOTIVE so interesting is that Sturgis is flummoxed. A young woman, well liked by (almost) all, is found brutally murdered in her home. There is only one potential suspect, and he has a geographical alibi that is all but impossible to crack. Sturgis, his groaning table of closed cases notwithstanding, can’t bear the thought of a victim not having justice, or, to use the cliche, of someone getting away with murder. Still, Sturgis’ turf is Los Angeles, and he can’t solve his crimes one at a time.

There is always another case competing for Sturgis’ attention, and this time it comes in the form of Ursula Corey, an attractive divorcee who has been gunned down, execution style, in the parking garage of her divorce attorney’s office building. Sturgis and Delaware almost immediately identify two potential suspects --- one obvious, the other somewhat surprising --- and are busily following threads of evidence when the case takes a sudden and shocking turn. A new clue links Corey’s murder to that of Sturgis’ previous unsolved case. Sturgis is stunned but not immobile. He and Delaware immediately begin looking for a link between the two somewhat different victims, and find a rather tenuous one that also connects them to a couple of other unsolved cases, as well as to one of their main suspects.

Just when Sturgis and Delaware think they have almost everything wrapped up, an event occurs that turns the entire investigation upside down and puts a number of people in danger as a very angry murderer plans to strike again. And again.

What shines through here, dark tone and subject matter notwithstanding, is that Kellerman appears at all stages of the book to have been truly enjoying himself in the telling, leading his detectives and readers merrily down different paths only to find that they are not so much at a dead end as simply...wrong. MOTIVE is wonderfully made, equally well-driven by plot and character, and shouldn’t be missed. If you haven’t recently visited Kellerman and his dead-accurate version of L.A.’s dark side, here is the perfect reason for a return trip.