The traditional mystery series features characters in fixed roles. Detectives remain center stage in each novel, with their able assistants by their side. Nancy Atherton’s Aunt Dimity series, as typified by Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon, follow this fixed role approach. But occasionally a writer creates a character who calls out for more attention. Jonathan Kellerman’s 2009 publication, True Detectives, provides a case in point.
An extremely versatile writer, Kellerman is best known for his mystery series featuring Alex Delaware, a Los Angeles psychologist, and LAPD lieutenant Milo Sturgis. Within this series, though, Kellerman has created three spinoff novels, works in which minor series characters take on major roles. In True Detectives Moses Reed and Aaron Fox, half-brothers introduced in Kellerman’s 2008 bestseller, Bones, become such characters.
Summary of True Detectives
In order to locate missing college student Caitlin Frostig, two antagonistic half-brothers, Moses Reed and Aaron Fox, must work together. Both brothers’ hostile attitudes have been influenced by deaths of their respective fathers, Jack Reed and Darius Fox, who were police officers and partners.
A private investigator with a sophisticated fashion sense, Darius’ son Aaron is hired to find Caitlin by his employer, Mr. Dmitri. Aaron's half-brother, Moses, a by-the-book LAPD detective, simultaneously renews his cold case inquiry into her disappearance. Their joint investigation, which connects Caitlin’s disappearance with the deaths of two prostitutes, takes them into the dark side of Los Angeles’s cult of celebrity worship.
True Detectives’ Spinoff Characteristics
Like most spinoffs, True Detectives retains its connection to Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series by including the major characters from that series, Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis, in secondary roles. Milo, as Moses’ lieutenant, confers with Moses about the case. Alex Delaware provides the brothers with psychological insight into Caitlin’s disappearance.
Kellerman's Petra Connor Spinoff
True Detectives marks the second instance in which Kellerman has moved minor characters into major roles. Petra Connor, a Hollywood homicide detective introduced in Survival of the Fittest (1997), obtained her own series with the publication of Billy Straight (1998) and Twisted (2004). Petra returned to the Alex Delaware series in a minor role in A Cold Heart (2003) and in Obsession (2007). She is back again in a supporting role in True Detectives.
In an interesting inversion of the spinoff approach, Kellerman also used a “spin in” in Survival of the Fittest by including Daniel Sharavi among its minor characters. Sharavi was the key figure in Kellerman’s 1988 standalone novel, The Butcher's Theater. Standalones, like Laura Lippman's Life Sentences (2009) are designed to exist with no connection to a writer's other work. Creating a conundrum for classifiers, Kellerman's The Butcher's Theater existed as a standalone only for the nine years prior to Kellerman's addition of Sharavi to the cast of Survival of the Fittest .
Implications for True Detectives
Since Kellerman expanded Petra Connor’s development into a second novel, it appears likely that Moses and Aaron could receive the same treatment. Deliberately left unresolved in this novel, despite the lengthy build up Kellerman provides, is the story of the murder of Darius Fox, Aaron’s father, a death that was witnessed by Jack Reed, Moses’ father. Since Kellerman portrays Moses and Aaron as being so affected by that death, the genesis for a new novel featuring these “true detectives” seems to be already in place.
About Jonathan Kellerman
In addition to the Alex Delaware series, Kellerman, a child psychologist, has authored a number of nonfictional works, including With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars (2008). He is married to writer Faye Kellerman, with whom he co-authored the bestselling works, Double Homicide (2004) and Capital Crimes (2006). They have four children, including Jesse Kellerman, who is also a novelist.
Links
Kellerman, Jonathan. True Detectives. New York: Ballantine Books, 2009. ISBN: 978-0345495143
Carol Thomas - Carol Thomas began her writing career by teaching English Composition at two Kentucky universities. A 25-year detour into academic ...
