When the Bough Breaks

An Alex Delaware Novel

By: Jonathan Kellerman

Narrated by: John Rubinstein

In the first Alex Delaware novel, Dr. Morton Handler practiced a strange brand of psychiatry. Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old Melody Quinn.

It's psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware's job to try to unlock the terrible secret buried in Melody's memory. But as the sinister shadows in the girl's mind begin to take shape, Alex discovers that the mystery touches a shocking incident in his own past.

This connection is only the beginning, a single link in a forty-year-old conspiracy. And behind it lies an unspeakable evil that Alex Delaware must expose before it claims another innocent victim: Melody Quinn.©1988 Jonathan Kellerman and Bantam Audio Publishing; (P)1988 Bantam Audio Publishing, Random House AudioBooks, a Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"An engrossing thriller... this knockout of an entertainment is the kind of book which establishes a career in one stroke." -- New York Newsday

"Suspenseful, neatly spun, fascinating." -- Philadelphia Daily News

"Grab yourself a copy soon." -- Los Angeles Times

"An exceptionally exciting thriller!" -- The New York Times

Good book

The first of the Alex Delaware novels and a little more simplistic than others that followed. Still a great read.

Ordinary and dull

The plot was obvious; the surprises non-existent. I was bored. I would not recommend this book.

Insufficiently Audible

An interesting plot, although the hero has too many wonderful qualities to be believable. The biggest problem is the recording - the reader's voice sounds muffled, and it's often very difficult to find out what is being said.

I liked this mystery.

I bought this mystery on a whim, but once I started to listen to it I couldn't stop. The protagonist's obsession to solve the mystery becomes personal and that's when the action explodes into every corner of his life.

The dramatic music was entertaining, but also ruined a few moments in the book for me because it cued me to know what was coming next.

The narrator made the characters come to life with his ever changing voice. I liked his articulations of softly spoken females, foreign accents, and high-pitched voices of children.
The book is short, but entertaining and I'm going to listen to When The Bough Breaks again and again.

Good detective work; depravity of men.

Always love John Rubinstein as narrator. Like the psychology, mystery and solve aspects. This and Clinic a little too violence for me.