the deceased. However, they also find that an expert sniper has ended the producer’s career permanently with a bullet fired from a building across the street.

The police soon linked the producer’s death to several other unsolved killings in the Los Angeles area over the past few years. All had the same M.O., a long-range rifle shot in a highly specific location on the bodies. Alex examines the case files and helps interrogate possible suspects, trying to figure out if the killer is a professional assassin for hire or some type of vigilante. To reveal more of the storyline would spoil some surprises Open Season holds for readers. Those extend to the last chapter. Readers who enjoy watching episodes of Columbo to see the killer’s ultimate takedown will appreciate this book’s ending.

Open Season is an excellent procedural. I enjoyed watching the police pursue leads that later proved fruitless. That’s real life, and the work involved in dismissing suspects can be as interesting as investigations that lead to the actual killer. In the best mystery novel tradition, the author reveals a key clue literally in front of Alex’s eyes reasonably early in the book, but Alex (and undoubtedly most readers) misses its significance until much later. The ultimate exploration of the killer’s psyche will satisfy the psychologist in Alex and those readers who enjoy this type of criminal analysis.

Los Angeles and the greater Los Angeles areas are also characters in Open Season. For those of us who have never been there, the author provides much descriptive material that gives readers a feel for the area. That attention to detail also accompanies descriptions of the various characters and houses. Kellerman offers more detail than many other authors in similar works, but this detail made the scenes and characters come alive for me, without bogging the story down with pointless trivial information. The author also demonstrates the differences among the various law enforcement agencies investigating individual killings. Some cases in more rural areas just sat there as cold cases, making it more difficult for Alex to uncover a pattern.

After forty Alex Delaware novels, the central characters of Alex, his wife Robin, and Milo are well-established with readers. Nothing new from a personal standpoint emerges about the characters here. Instead, they have the easygoing familiarity with each other you’d expect from these people. Newcomers to the series can pick up the necessary personality details as Open Season goes along. The only character trait the author stresses is Milo’s constant hunger, which results in multiple refrigerator raids played for laughs. The author goes a bit overboard here, but that’s really the only flaw I spotted in this book.

Open Season is an excellent addition to the Alex Delaware series. The settings and characters, even those with one or two scenes, feel authentic and usually interesting. The psychology of the case will please true-crime buffs, and the mystery is well-plotted. Finally, Alex becomes vital to one of the most satisfying, ultimate confrontations with the killer I’ve read in a long time. That closing sequence removed any doubts I had about the quality and entertainment value of Open Season. This book deserves an open-and-shut five-star rating.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.