Reading: THE WEDDING GUEST - Jonathan Kellerman

This was only my second foray into Jonathan Kellerman, after reading Breakdown a few years ago. That book was a bit of a disappointment, too slow and meandering at times, but with enough ... oomph? to the writing to make me try again with The Wedding Guest. Here, we once again follow Los Angeles homicide detective Milo Sturgis, along with his long-term best buddy/Watson, psychologist Alex Delaware, as the pair show up at a wedding reception gone bad. As if not bad enough that the reception was held at a low-end, overhauled former strip club, upstairs in the bathroom one of the unluckier bridesmaids has discovered the body of a beautiful young girl, dressed to the nines in red haute couture that extends to the dark red gash across her throat. No ID, no witnesses, and with a hundred wedding guests (plus staff) downstairs who swear they've never seen the girl before, Sturgis - the muscle - and Delaware - the intuition - glean right off, from questioning the bride and groom and their families, that something isn't quite right. It's there, with the very dysfunctional families, they start the laborious, sometimes seemingly fruitless task of not only identifying their mystery wedding guest ... but also, in Alex's mind, the kind of murderer who would have taken the time to kill in such a brutal way. I learned with Breakdown that an Alex Delaware novel can be a slow burn; like a modern-day Holmes and Watson (although without nearly as many brilliant deductions from Sturgis, and Watson being the insightful one), Milo and Alex go very much from point A to point B, questioning suspects and working leads, each new contact hopefully sending them further along the trail of the murderer as new clues, motives and suspects are revealed. But whereas I got impatient with Breakdown's slow-moving caravan of action, the secrets of The Wedding Guest, as meticulously as they evolved, felt like comfort food for the detective soul. The friendship between Sturgie and Delaware is deep-rooted, their banter real as they continuously lobby suggestions and theories around like tennis balls, and while it's Alex's genius that generally carries the day, his friendship with Milo Sturgis - the least stereotypical gay cop you're ever likely to meet - keeps the pages turning as much as any action sequence.Every time I had to put this book down, when I picked it up again I felt like I was getting back to old friends, following along with them on the hunt for a killer, and if that's how the other 32 Delaware novels I haven't read yet are, I am in for a treat.  4/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.