Présentation de l'éditeur With scores of millions of books in print, translation into two dozen languages, and one of the most popular heroes in contemporary fiction to his name, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman is the unequivocal “master of the psychological thriller” (People). In his newest novel Kellerman delivers a tour de force–poignant, dark, and chilling–that illuminates a shadowy world where impulse rules. Tanya Bigelow was a solemn little girl when Dr. Alex Delaware successfully treated her obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Now, at nineteen, she still seems older than her years–but her problems go beyond hyper-maturity. Patty Bigelow, Tanya’s aunt and adoptive mother, has made a deathbed confession of murder and urged the young woman to seek Delaware’s help. The doctor recalls Patty as a selfless E.R. nurse struggling to raise a child on her own–a woman seemingly incapable of the “terrible thing” she has admitted. But for Tanya’s peace of mind, Delaware agrees to investigate, and he enlists LAPD detective Milo Sturgis in the search for the phantom victim of a crime that may never have occurred.Armed with only the vaguest details, psychologist and cop follow a trail twisting from L.A.’s sleaziest low-rent districts to its overblown mansions, retracing Patty and Tanya’s nomadic and increasingly puzzling life to the doorsteps of a sullen heroin addict; a randy real-estate broker; and a brilliant, enigmatic physics student. Suddenly a very real murder tears open a terrifying tunnel into the past, where secrets–and bodies–are buried. As the tension mounts, Delaware and Sturgis uncover a tangled history of desperation, vengeance, and death–a legacy of evil that refuses to die. Dramatic, action-packed, and filled with the psychological detail that only Jonathan Kellerman can provide, Obsession is a whodunit, a whydunit–and something unique: a did-it-even-happen? This is Kellerman at his heart-racing best. Extrait CHAPTER 1Patty Bigelow hated surprises and did her best to avoid them. God had other ideas.Patty’s concept of a supreme being wavered between Ho-Ho-Ho Santa and a Fire-Eyed Odin thrusting thunderbolts.Either way, a white-bearded guy bunking down in the clouds. Depending on his mood, dispensing goodies or playing marbles with the planets.If pressed, Patty would’ve called herself an agnostic. But when life went haywire why not be like everyone else and blame A Greater Power?The night Lydia surprised her, Patty had been home for a couple of hours, trying to wind down after a tough day in the E.R. Mellowing out with a beer, then another, and when that didn’t work, giving in to The Urge.First, she straightened the apartment, doing stuff that didn’t need doing. She ended up using a toothbrush on the kitchen counter grout, cleaned the toothbrush with a wire brush that she washed under hot water and picked clean. Still tense, she saved the best for last: arranging her shoes—wiping each loafer, sneaker, and sandal clean with a chamois, sorting and re-sorting by color, making sure everything pointed outward at precisely the same angle.Time for blouses and sweaters . . . the doorbell rang.One twenty a.m. in Hollywood, who the heck would be drop- ping in?Patty got irritated, then nervous. Should’ve bought that gun. She took a carving knife to the door, made sure to use the peephole.Saw black sky, no one out there . . . oh, yes there was.When she realized what Lydia had done, she stood there, too stunned to blame anyone.Lydia Bigelow Nardulli Soames Biefenbach was Patty’s baby sister but she’d crammed a lot more living into her thirty-five years than Patty wanted to think about.Dropout years, groupie years, barmaid years, sitting-on-back-of-the-Harley years. Vegas, Miami, San Antonio, Fresno, Mexico, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana. No time for postcards or sisterly calls, the only time Patty heard from Liddie had to do with money.Lydia was quick to point out that the arrests were chickenshit, not
