Billy Straight
   Jonathan Kellerman
  1998 Random House NY USA
   ISBN: 0679459596


Twelve-year-old Billy has fashioned a precarious existence on Los Angeles' meanest streets after escaping his mother's vicious boyfriend. What he sees one night galvanizes him, the media, bounty hunters, the murderer himself & Petra Connor, a homicide detective.

I don't always like a Jonathan Kellerman, I do, however, always get my money's worth & Billy Straight is no exception. In fact this latest thriller is one exciting gripper.

I liked both Billy, a kid with a keen eye, alert brain & a well- developed sense of self-preservation, & Petra Connor, a thinking homicide detective with a battered & flawed past.

While the subject of this thriller/mystery is, naturally, a murder, Jonathan Kellerman has created such a vivid living world around this one vicious act that they live beside you in yours. The suspects, two boyhood buddies, one rich & famous while the other is his lackey, are the more terrifying because of all the mean characters you meet in this page-turner, they seem the least mean.

I really enjoyed the disparate views of city life: one of a boy on the run: in alleys, empty houses, zoos & parks. Another, as if a camera is panning across beach streets, posh secluded estates, seedy souvenir stands, acres of parklands. Another focuses on an old concentration camp survivor & the synagogue he takes care of into which Billy scampers for refuge & finally, the city underbelly that the police force gets to see.

I was entirely engaged with the police crew: the partnerships, the memories, the beginnings of relationships & the endings. I enjoyed seeing the clues peek out at unlikely moments & I could almost smell their scent.

Jonathan Kellerman has a palpable hit with Billy Straight. Lots to think about: almost as if I'd traveled the streets, seen the parks, met the people. Very well done!

More from Jonathan Kellerman:
Non-fiction: Helping the Fearful Child(1981); Psychological Aspects of Childhood Cancer(1980)
For children, written and illustrated: Jonathan Kellerman's ABC of Weird Creatures(1995); Daddy, Daddy, Can You Touch the Sky?(1994)
Fiction: Survival of the Fittest(1997); The Clinic(1997); The Web(1996); Self-Defense(1995); Bad Love(1994): Devil's Waltz(1993) and many more.
(08/15/99)

Rebecca