Kelman, Judith

More Than You Know

Missing in Manhattan: The Adams Round Table

The Session

National bestselling author Judith Kelman, who has thrilled readers with all the suspense, wit, romance, and surprises that they love, returns with The Session, as a female therapist finds herself in an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with a clever, cold-blooded killer.

Every Step You Take

Claire Barrow has found a fascinating focus for her latest novel--identity theft. But her invention turns all too real as Claire begins to recognize that someone is systematically stealing her life. Her nightmare deepens with the stunning news that the courts have released the vicious killer her late husband tried to put away for life. On a collision course with total ruin and with no one left to trust, Claire sees only one--very dangerous--way out.

The House on the Hill

The psychopath: Released from prison after losing his sight and incarcerated in a once-deserted home at the edge of the woods, he is under constant electronic surveillance, his every move monitored by closed-circuit cameras.  There is no way he could possibly escape....



The parole officer: One of the few people in town who knows what is locked inside the isolated house.  Quinn Gallagher thought she was hardened to human evil until she looked into the sightless eyes of a child killer and felt a law officer's outrage--and a parent's nameless dread....



The mother: Moved to Dove's Landing after the breakup of her first marriage hoping to start a new life with her daughter and her new husband--a  hope that is devastated when eleven-year-old Abby disappears one ordinary afternoon.



The nightmare: Now a killer may be on the lose on the streets of the small Vermont town...preying on the young and the innocent...and the horror is beginning all over again.  And the only clues to his identity lie in the dark confessions of a madman...and in The House On The Hill.

One Last Kiss

The papers dubbed beautiful Thea Harper  Westport a Black Widow. They said she lured Senator Simon  Gallatin to her home for a night of deadly  passion. But psychiatrists insisted it was a short  circuit of the mind, a rare seizure disorder, that had  unleashed Thea's murderous rage. Now, even after  the trial, the gruesome testimony of detectives  and forensic specialists, Thea can't remember the  terrifying moment when she struck Simon down . . .  only its hideous aftermath: the torrent of blood,  the broken corpse, the cold steel bite of the  handcuffs as the police led her away. After six  months in a posh Connecticut mental hospital, Thea is  back home with her daughter, eager to make a new  start. If only the community would let her forget .  . . if only the chief of police wasn't after her .  . . if only the senator's mother wasn't vowing  revenge. And if only Thea could be sure she's really  been cured. For soon the killing begins again.  And once more Thea can't remember . . . even when  she wakes up with her hands stained with blood.

Summer of Storms

The still-unsolved murder of her 3-year-old sister Julie has haunted Anna Jameson's dreams since childhood. Tantalizing bits and pieces of that hurricane-tossed night tease her memory, but she's put it behind her and tried to move on with her life--unlike her parents, who left New York after the tragedy and still don't venture very far from their Charleston home. Now Anna has an opportunity to make her mark as a photographer in New York, and despite her mother's worry and warning, she takes it. Much of the first half of this somewhat slow-moving suspense story covers Anna's efforts to make a place for herself, professionally and personally. But then another perspective intrudes: that of a group of forensic psychologists, known collectively as the Arcanum, who study "cold" cases and try to close them, often years after the fact. The "Sleeping Beauty Murder," as the killing of little Julie Jameson is known, suddenly takes on new urgency when an anonymous someone with inside knowledge of those past events gets the experts involved again.

Despite the obvious parallels to the Jon Benet Ramsey case (including the suspicion that a family member killed the little girl), it's never made clear why a 30-year-old murder should still capture so much attention. The characterizations of the Arcanum members are so thin and one-dimensional that we don't care about them, except to note that author Judith Kelman seems to have a particular dislike of one of the experts she sketches, a media-hungry, spotlight-grabbing, and thoroughly unpleasant psychologist who's almost as awful as Anna's new boss, a tyrannical newspaper publisher. Kelman's written more than a dozen solid thrillers (Fly Away Home,, After the Fall, etc.), but this one seems slight and full of extraneous characters, intentionally misleading clues and McGuffins, and unfulfilled expectations. --Jane Adams

It's always the season for Kelman--and this Mary Higgins Clark Award winner.

Praised for her novels of "superior psychological suspense" (Midwest Book Review), Judith Kelman now draws a killer out of the shadows of a dark, sinister New York City.

If I Should Die

Fear made their hearts race, palms sweat, breaths come in panicked gasps.  Dr. Maggie Lyon's phobia patients sat in their therapy group, imprisoned by their own secret terrors, depending on her to set them free . . .  "The bridge was just a few steps away, and Macklin felt himself running toward it, no longer afraid--even when he climbed up on the railing, even when his scream echoed as he tumbled all the long way down.  The speedometer climbed toward 100, and the driver squealed in delight.  She never be teased about being "The Snail" agian as she raced down the highway toward the sharp curve and a fiery dive to death.  Dr. Maggie Lyons felt a chill when she heard about the suicide and the accident.  Two of her patients were dead, and the authorities believed she was to blame.  Unless someone had murdered them.  Detective Sam Bannister thought so, and now Maggie felt the growing threat of someone in the darkness . . . someone who knew her weakness . . . someone waiting to unleash the dear that kills.

After the Fall

When the police come pounding at the Magills' door, arresting their straight-A son Danny for a shocking crime, it shatters the affluent family's perfect world.

Someone's Watching

Five-year-old James Merritt lies in a hospital bed--the sixth victim in a series of accidents plaguing a peaceful Connecticut community.  'Maybe if he pretends to be asleep, the shadow man will go away.  He sees the glint of the needle.  The pain does not alarm him.  In his wildest imagining, he has never dreamed death would come in such a tiny, innocent way.'  Cinnie Merritt holds her son's limp and weightless hand, trying to explain away the injuries that don't add up, the strange medical reactions, the nonsense words he keeps repeating, the shattering sense of foreboding. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.  'Please let my baby be all right.  Please let him wake up and be fine.'  At night, a stalking figure makes its silent way into the hospital room.



'You belong to me now, child of my salvation.  Wellspring of health and healing.  Sweet servant of the dark moon.  From the dark corner of a mother's world nightmare . . .Someone's Watching.