City of the Dead cover art

City of the Dead

An Alex Delaware Novel

Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

City of the Dead

By: Jonathan Kellerman
Narrated by: John Rubinstein
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $31.70

Buy Now for $31.70

About this listen

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The iconic thriller series that inspired the upcoming streaming show on Prime Video, in development now!

The past comes back to haunt psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis when they investigate a grisly double homicide and uncover an even more unspeakable motive in this riveting novel from the bestselling master of suspense.


Los Angeles is a city of sunlight, celebrity, and possibility. The L.A. often experienced by Homicide Lt. Detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware, is a city of the dead.

Early one morning, the two of them find themselves in a neighborhood of pretty houses, pretty cars, and pretty people. The scene they encounter is anything but. A naked young man lies dead in the street, the apparent victim of a collision with a moving van hurtling through suburbia in the darkness. But any thoughts of accidental death vanish when a blood trail leads to a nearby home.

Inside, a young woman lies butchered. The identity of the male victim and his role in the horror remain elusive, but that of the woman creates additional questions. And adding to the shock, Alex has met her while working a convoluted child custody case. Cordelia Gannett was a self-styled internet influencer who’d gotten into legal troubles by palming herself off as a psychologist. Even after promising to desist, she’s found a loophole and has continued her online career, aiming to amass clicks and ads by cyber-coaching and cyber-counseling people plagued with relationship issues.

But upon closer examination, Alex and Milo discover that her own relationships are troublesome, including a tortured family history and a dubious personal past. Has that come back to haunt her in the worst way? Is the mystery man out in the street collateral damage or will he turn out to be the key to solving a grisly double homicide? As the psychologist and the detective explore L.A.'s meanest streets, they peel back layer after layer of secrets and encounter a savage, psychologically twisted, almost unthinkable motive for violence and bloodshed.
Crime Thrillers Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense

Critic Reviews

“One of [Kellerman’s] best.”Mystery & Suspense

“As always, Kellerman provides fascinating insight into the motivations of his damaged characters.”Publishers Weekly

“A gripping, readable thriller that combines elements of the police procedural, murder mystery, and psychological thriller genres.”Booklist

“Kellerman at his best . . . [He] uses his training as a psychologist to construct a crime and perpetrator that will have readers turning pages and guessing until the very end.”Library Journal
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.