Most Popular Books by Jesse Kellerman

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Alex Delaware novels and the award-winning #1 international bestselling author of The Genius combine their extraordinary talents for one of the most unusual—and unnerving—thrillers of the year. Detective Jacob Lev has awakened dazed and confused: it appears he picked up a woman the night before, but can’t remember anything about it. And then suddenly, she’s gone. Not long after, he’s dispatched to a murder scene in a house in the Hollywood hills. There is no body, only a head. And seared into a kitchen counter is a message: the Hebrew word for justice. Lev is about to embark on an odyssey—through Los Angeles, London, and Prague, through the labyrinthine mysteries of a grotesque ancient legend, and most of all, through himself. All that he has believed to be true will be upended. And not only his world, but the world itself, will be changed.

The riveting new Clay Edison thriller from the bestselling, acclaimed father-son duo who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King) Cut loose from his former life at the coroner’s office, Clay Edison has set up shop as a private investigator. It’s steady, safe work. Until it isn’t. The trouble begins when a young man, tasked with managing his grandmother’s estate, hires Clay to examine some minor financial discrepancies. What starts off as a case of simple fraud rapidly explodes into a web of deception, an elaborate con game stretching back decades and involving countless victims. All the evidence points to a tiny town on California’s rugged, remote Lost Coast. Good luck getting there, though. And Clay’s reward for surviving the journey is a trigger-happy welcoming committee, ready to guard their secrets with lethal force. Navigating this landscape of savage waves and savage lies brings Clay into collision with a host of other players: a grieving mother, an enigmatic teenager, a reclusive military veteran, a foul-mouthed PI pursuing her own agenda. And the price of truth will turn out to be higher—and deadlier—than Clay could have imagined. From the minds of Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman comes a heart-stopping tale of deception and redemption—bursting with action, suspense, and unforgettable characters.

“A MASTERFUL PLOT AND DEAD-ON PACING.”—Entertainment Weekly “From its first hip, cynical, snarky, confessional pages, this deftly plotted novel rivets the reader…a must buy.”—Booklist In a decaying New York slum, a tenant named Victor Cracke has disappeared, leaving behind countless cardboard boxes of strange, original artwork. Gallery owner Ethan Muller can see their brilliance—and their moneymaking potential. Strictly speaking, the drawings don’t belong to Ethan. But great art demands an audience, and before long Ethan’s wildly successful show is being covered by the Times…where it attracts the attention of the police. Because the subjects of the pictures look exactly like the victims in a long-cold murder case. Ethan has received a letter saying stop stop stop. And the still-missing genius may be the link to a madman—or the madman himself…

New York City medical student Jonah stumbles into the middle of a crime in progress and inadvertently kills a would-be murderer, only to find himself showered by intrusive media attention and pursued by the unstable woman he saved.

Deputy coroner Clay Edison goes to extreme lengths for a forgotten Jane Doe in the new thriller from a father-son team of bestselling authors who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King). “As for the keen sense of drama, it must be a genetic trait. . . . The Kellermans show compassion for the survivors, including conscientious officials like Edison.”—The New York Times Book Review Former star basketball player Clay Edison is busy. He’s solved a decades-old crime and redeemed an innocent man, earning himself a suspension in the process. Things are getting serious with his girlfriend. Plus his brother’s fresh out of prison, bringing with him a whole new set of complications. Then the phone rings in the dead of night. A wild party in a gentrifying East Bay neighborhood. A heated argument that spills into the street. Gunshots. Chaos. For Clay and his fellow coroners, it’s the start of a long night and the first of many to come. The victims keep piling up. What begins as a community tragedy soon becomes lurid fodder for social media. Then the smoke clears and the real mystery emerges—one victim’s death doesn’t match the others. Brutalized and abandoned, stripped of ID, and left to die: She is Jane Doe, a human question mark. And it falls to Clay to give her a name and a voice. Haunted by the cruelty of her death, he embarks upon a journey into the bizarre, entering a hidden world where innocence and perversity meet and mingle. There, his relentless pursuit of the truth opens the gateway to a dark and baffling past—and brings him right into the line of fire. Praise for A Measure of Darkness “Edison is an interesting protagonist, a good man for whom finding the truth is more important than anything else, including his own safety. He’s gentle and strong, compassionate and ruthless, methodical and impulsive. A strong sequel to Crime Scene that will leave readers wanting to see more of Edison.”—Booklist

Things get personal for Deputy Coroner Clay Edison when a murder hits close to home in this riveting, emotional thriller from the bestselling father-son team who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King). A raging wildfire. A massive blackout. A wealthy man shot to death in his palatial hilltop home. For Clay Edison, it’s all in a day’s work. As a deputy coroner, caring for the dead, he speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves. He prides himself on an unflinching commitment to the truth. Even when it gets him into trouble. Then, while working the murder scene, Clay is horrified to discover a link to his brother, Luke. Horrified. But not surprised. Luke is fresh out of prison and struggling to stay on the straight and narrow. And now he’s gone AWOL. The race is on for Clay to find him before anyone else can. Confronted with Luke’s legacy of violence, Clay is forced to reckon with his own suspicions, resentments, and loyalties. Is his brother a killer? Or could he be the victim in all of this, too? This is Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman at their most affecting and page-turning—a harrowing collision of family, revenge, and murder.

Deputy Coroner Clay Edison discovers that buried secrets can be deadly in this riveting thriller from a father-son team of bestselling authors who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King). An ID Book Club Selection Clay Edison has his hands full. He’s got a new baby who won''t sleep. He’s working the graveyard shift. And he’s trying, for once, to mind his own business. Then comes the first call. Workers demolishing a local park have made a haunting discovery: the decades-old skeleton of a child. But whose? And how did it get there? No sooner has Clay begun to investigate than he receives a second call—this one from a local businessman, wondering if the body could belong to his sister. She went missing fifty years ago, the man says. Or at least I think she did. It’s a little complicated. And things only get stranger from there. Clay’s relentless search for answers will unearth a history of violence and secrets, revolution and betrayal. Because in this town, the past isn’t dead. It’s very much alive. And it can be murderous.

When businessman Carl Perreira disappears during his vacation in Mexico, it’s his loyal assistant Gloria who makes call after call to find out what happened. After all, she’s been secretly in love with him for years. When she’s told that Carl has died in a car accident, it’s Gloria who tries, to no avail, to track down the next of kin or a copy of Carl’s will. And it’s Gloria, heartbroken, who finally decides to journey across the border herself to retrieve his body. But the deeper into the desert she travels, the more shocking the discoveries she makes. About Carl. About herself. And about how elusive and dangerous the truth can be. “Offbeat…seductive…hypnotic.”—The New York Times Book Review “A slow-burning, sunbaked noir treat.”—Entertainment Weekly “Pitch-perfect prose…a helluva debut.”—Toronto Globe and Mail

From two #1 bestselling masters of crime fiction comes an extraordinary thriller about family, murder, and secrets. It’s been more than a year since LAPD detective Jacob Lev learned the remarkable truth about his family, and he’s not coping well. He’s back to drinking, the LAPD Special Projects Department continues to shadow him, and the memory of a woman named Mai haunts him. And while Jacob has tried to build a bridge to his mother, she remains imprisoned inside her own tattered mind. Then he comes across the file for a gruesome unsolved murder that brings the two halves of his life into startling collision. Finding the killer will take him halfway around the world, to Paris. It’s a dangerous search for truth that plunges him into the past. And for Jacob Lev, there is no place more frightening.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A former star athlete turned deputy coroner is drawn into a brutal, complicated murder in this psychological thriller from a father-son writing team that delivers “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King). Natural causes or foul play? That’s the question Clay Edison must answer each time he examines a body. Figuring out motives and chasing down suspects aren’t part of his beat—not until a seemingly open-and-shut case proves to be more than meets his highly trained eye. Eccentric, reclusive Walter Rennert lies cold at the bottom of his stairs. At first glance the scene looks straightforward: a once-respected psychology professor, done in by booze and a bad heart. But his daughter Tatiana insists that her father has been murdered, and she persuades Clay to take a closer look at the grim facts of Rennert’s life. What emerges is a history of scandal and violence, and an experiment gone horribly wrong that ended in the brutal murder of a coed. Walter Rennert, it appears, was a broken man—and maybe a marked one. And when Clay learns that a colleague of Rennert’s died in a nearly identical manner, he begins to question everything in the official record. All the while, his relationship with Tatiana is evolving into something forbidden. The closer they grow, the more determined he becomes to catch her father’s killer—even if he has to overstep his bounds to do it. The twisting trail Clay follows will lead him into the darkest corners of the human soul. It’s his job to listen to the tales the dead tell. But this time, he’s part of a story that makes his blood run cold. Praise for Crime Scene “You could drive yourself crazy trying to figure out who wrote what. . . . But whoever came up with the fine line, ‘When I meet new people, they’re usually dead,’ should pat himself on the back.”—The New York Times Book Review “A terrific book . . . Put Crime Scene at the top of your reading pile.”—Bookreporter “A character-driven, intricately plotted whodunit . . . Mystery readers will devour the book and look forward to the next father and son collaboration.”—Press Republican

In a New York slum a tenant has mysteriously disappeared--leaving behind a huge collection of sick but brilliant paintings. For art dealer Ethan Muller, this is the discovery of a lifetime. He displays the pictures in his gallery and watches as they rocket up in value. But suddenly the police want to talk to him. It seems that the missing artist had a deadly past. Sucked into an investigation four decades cold, Ethan will uncover a secret legacy of shame and death, one that will touch horrifyingly close to home--and leave him fearing for his own life.--P.4 of cover.

Joseph Geist takes a job as a "conversationalist" for a wealthy, enigmatic woman who offers him a place to stay in her big, beautiful house. But as his friendship with his employer evolves from conversationalist to lodger to caretaker, Joseph finds himself at odds with the woman''s troubled nephew, and decides to do whatever is necessary to maintain his position.

An Edgar(R) Award Nominee for Best Novel Jesse Kellerman—the international bestselling author of The Executor and The Genius—brings his prodigious talent to bear on a topic he knows well in this hilarious and surprising spin on the modern blockbuster thriller novel. Missing for months after a tragic boating accident, William de Vallée, the superstar thriller writer, is pronounced dead. His oldest friend, Arthur Pfefferkorn, receives the news with an unsettling mix of grief and envy. A middle-aged college professor with long-dead literary aspirations, Pfefferkorn can’t help but feel outshone by his friend’s success—especially since he married the woman Pfefferkorn loved. But now Bill is gone, and Pfefferkorn is there to comfort Carlotta in her time of grief. Reconnecting with de Vallée’s widow makes more than one of his dreams come true . . . until it plunges him into a shadowy world of intrigue and double crosses, where no one can be trusted—and nothing can be taken seriously.

When the world''s bestselling thriller writer, William de Vallée, disappears from his luxury yacht while sailing off the LA coast, his best friend and fellow writer Arthur Pfefferkorn decides to pick up where he left off. But little does Arthur know that this impulsive decision is about to change his life for ever... We want to tell you more about this novel. We wish we could explain how spectacular and absolutely unexpected it is; how it will burn itself onto your brain for ever. But the truth is we could never do it justice... The only way you''ll understand it is to read it.

" J''ai passé trois jours totalement immergé dans le monde créé par Jonathan et Jesse Kellerman. Voici un roman brillant, dont on tourne fiévreusement les pages, et auquel des fondations mythiques donnent une résonance particulière. Il est le fruit d''une collaboration unique qui fait mentir l''arithmétique : ici, un plus un égale beaucoup plus que deux. Ce livre m''a coupé le souffle. " Stephen King Jacob Lev, inspecteur du LAPD et fils de rabbin, est chargé par une mystérieuse section de " Projets spéciaux " d''enquêter sur la présence d''une tête, sans corps, dans une maison abandonnée de la colline d''Hollywood. Sur le plan de travail de la cuisine, le mot JUSTICE a été gravé en hébreu. Tandis qu''à Prague le Golem, créature mythique qui aurait été créée au XVIe siècle par le Maharal, semble s''être réveillé de son long sommeil... Jacob Lev s''embarque dans un voyage bien éloigné des investigations policières habituelles, qui va le mener à Oxford et à Prague, mais aussi dans les zones obscures de son histoire familiale. Jonathan Kellerman est né en 1949 à New York et vit à Los Angeles avec son épouse, la romancière Faye Kellerman. Psychologue clinicien spécialisé en pédiatrie, il est l''auteur de plus de trente thrillers psychologiques traduits dans le monde entier. Il a reçu un Edgar pour Le Rameau brisé. Jesse Kellerman, leur fils, est né en 1978 à Los Angeles et vit en Californie. Auteur de cinq romans dont Les Visages, couronné par le Grand Prix des lectrices de ELLE, il a reçu en 2003 le Princess Grace Award, attribué au jeune dramaturge le plus prometteur d''Amérique. Traduit de l''anglais (États-Unis) par Julie Sibony

"Live, Laugh, Love." Jerry Hauser seeks to reinvent his present with the aid of Darren Hart’s opportunistic assistant Cassandra, but his past refuses to stay where it belongs—as Jerry’s ex-wife and daughter learn when they meet Powder Bob. And nothing good happens to anyone who runs afoul of Power Bob...

ÒWho Shaves the Barber?ÓÊ Jerry Hauser has long been in over his head, which is one reason he assumed the identity of the globally popular but presumed-dead self-help guru. Only, all heÕs accomplished so far is assuming the growing problems of both menÑa situation that spirals even further out of control thanks to his appearance on a daytime talk show, bringing even more unwanted and vicious criminal elements into his life!

MINISERIES PREMIERE Down-on-his-luck rideshare driver Jerry HauserÕs existence is a bleak oneÉespecially because every fare he picks up tells him how much he looks like uber-successful self-help guru Darren Hart. But after a twist of fate, Jerry is given the chance of a lifetimeÉwhich, if heÕs not careful, may well end his lifetime. So begins this California noirÑa rollicking and gleefully lurid pulp crime story for our time.

Down-on-his-luck rideshare driver Jerry HauserÕs night has taken an abrupt turn, and he now finds himself posing as self-help guru Darren Hart. This presents certain challenges for tonightÕs meeting: DarrenÕs shrewdly opportunistic assistant Cassandra is suspicious, and their host, Ove, an off-his-rocker Finnish gangster, has a hungry panther in the backyard. Jerry will be lucky to get away with his conÉand his life.

The latest addictive thriller from No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman, the master of psychological suspense, in his acclaimed series featuring Doctor Alex Delaware. Well-used to elevated emotions, psychologist Alex Delaware shrugs off a joking death threat from beautiful Beverly Hills physician Constance Sykes, whose attempt to secure legal custody of her baby niece is thwarted by Alex''s forthright report to the court. Alex plays down the threat until LAPD''s Milo Sturgis rushes to his side with the shocking word on the street that a hit''s been taken out on him. But while Alex may be in grave danger, it won''t be from the Beverley Hills doctor, for Connie is soon discovered brutally slain. When her sister Cherie and the baby disappear, apparently on the run, Alex''s search for answers leads him to aged rockers, charming homeboys and even Machiavellian judges. As the darkest of secrets are peel away, and a cruel system churns through family lives, Alex seeks to stop a vicious killer and save a child from a life of nightmares... or worse.

Par l’auteur du roman culte Les Visages. Arthur Pfefferkorn est un prof de fac aux ambitions littéraires avortées. Il vit dans l’ombre de son plus vieil ami, le célèbre William de Nerval, auteur de policiers au succès international, qui compte même Stephen King parmi ses fans. Pour couronner le tout, William a épousé la belle Carlotta, dont Arthur est épris depuis leur jeunesse. Un jour, William disparaît en mer et Arthur se rapproche alors de la veuve éplorée. La tentation est grande de faire aussi main basse sur le dernier manuscrit – inédit – de son ami. Mais son plagiat va déclencher une série d’événements sinistres, dignes des thrillers les plus terrifiants... Un véritable tour de force, cette satire de polar contient tous les codes – espionnage, romance et suspense – auxquels l’auteur tord le cou avec un plaisir évident. Traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Julie Sibony