Your average shrink would have a field day with a patient who describes himself as a cross between a working dog and a perfectionist. A man recently consumed by thoughts of sadomasochism, swamps and serial killers, who imagines himself being lowered into the grave typing. But for clinical psychologist and best-selling thriller author Jonathan Kellerman, this is all in a day's work. He says a vivid imagination, combined with a clinical fascination with the dark side of human nature, feeds the pool of creativity that has enabled him to publish 31 works of fiction and non-fiction since 1980. He adds that the meticulousness with which he orders his desk is the same force that fuels his interest in structure, and what he calls the 'architecture of language'. Speaking from his Los Angeles home, Kellerman, 59, discusses his latest novel Bones and attributes his success to adopting a workaday approach to his writing. Choosing interesting topics without preaching issues, combined with an author's ability to 'get the bad guys 100 per cent of the time', keeps readers coming back for more, he says. Kellerman arrived on the literary scene in 1985 with the publication of his first novel When the Bough Breaks, which won the Edgar Allan Poe and Anthony Boucher Awards for best first novel, and introduced his core series character, psychologist Alex Delaware. While being consumed with a love of writing since the age of 12, and having picked up a Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award for fiction when studying at UCLA, he had to earn his crust as a practising clinical psychologist in Los Angeles for years before hitting literary pay dirt. 'I was a field raider with a really good day job for 13 years,' he says. 'I wrote eight or nine novels that never got published. I won a literary prize at college at the age of 21. I thought I was a big shot. I won a fairly prestigious award and then didn't get published for 13 years. So I needed to learn how to do it.' In many ways his fiction was inspired by his day job. Professional pride led him to create Delaware as the real McCoy to counter the 'laughable, stereotypical' renderings of psychologists in print and on film. The draw of the darker side of human nature, which inspired him to study psychology, served as a powerful creative force. 'Most crime novelists are cowards. I write about things that frighten me,' he says. 'I'm the kind of guy with a very vivid imagination, the kind of person who thinks about the darker side of life. I always have. Not in a depressing way, but with almost a clinical curiosity. 'My experiences as a psychologist taught me about human nature and its extremes. So I draw on that when I write,' he says. 'I'm trying to get some fictitious control over this stuff.' Readers are after the same sense of control, he says, citing one LAPD officer who loves the fact that Kellerman's characters always catch the criminals. 'I think that says it all. It's a form of achieving a vicarious sense of control over terrible things, because we know in real life it doesn't happen that way. It's a form of escapism,' he says. The boys in blue have not always loved Kellerman though. He messed with the LAPD's masculine image by introducing Milo Sturgis' character, a tough homicide cop who is gay. He also drew flak from parts of the city's vocal gay population for being a straight trying to depict a gay man. 'It was radical at the time, but now readers from both groups seem to like Milo as he is,' he says. As readers have grown accustomed to his characters over the years, Kellerman has become more productive and successful as a writer. This year saw him complete three manuscripts - two novels and a non-fiction title, With Strings Attached, that features his classic guitar collection and his love of music. 'My pal Andy Summers from The Police wrote the foreword,' he says. 'I'm not one of these writers who's full of self loathing, a tortured soul.' Instead he takes a nine-to-five professional approach to writing. After arranging his desk with a level of perfectionism he is careful 'not to visit on the family', he sets out to write an average of five pages a day. 'In around 100 days you have a manuscript. Then you go back and rewrite, nipping and tucking along the way.' Characterisation is crucial, he says, despite his focus on structure, plot and the overall 'architecture of language'. 'All good writing is about characterisation. I like to write books that are 'realistic', in the sense that the characters are real people. Even though people say my books have a lot of plot, they're still really about the characters.' But do fame, fortune and productive efficiency detract from the author's creative pleasures? 'It's really something that I love just as much as when I started out. I joke they'll be lowering myself into my grave when I'm typing,' he says. 'I look forward to getting up in the morning and doing it, and when I'm away from it for any length of time I get a little cranky. 'I know this is going to sound terrible, but I really like all my books,' he says. 'Without being glib, my favourite book is always the one I'm working on.' He takes time to promote his wife, Faye Kellerman, a best-selling novelist, and his son Jesse, who has recently picked up a two-book deal. 'Two of my four children write. They are born to do it. I think it's biological,' he says. Gauging how much of this self-promotion comes from an ability to promote brand Kellerman - honed through hundreds of interviews and numerous pole positions on the best-seller lists - and how much emanates from his core personality is a tough call. To be fair, he is not averse to interjecting a decent amount of self-deprecation into the conversation, and he says, 'writing is a combination of fluctuating narcissism and self-evaluation'. Delaware and Sturgis return in Bones to track down a serial killer after discovering several mutilated female corpses in a local swamp. Further investigations reveal that the women were prostitutes with a penchant for sadomasochism, and it emerges that violent sex games played a part in the events that led to their murders. Waters become muddied when a local environmental campaigner, who looks after the swamp, is stabbed to death. Meanwhile, an auction bargain hunter buys a lot that contains an ornate Oriental box full of bones. When he realises they are human remains he turns them over to the police, enabling Milo and Delaware to connect a few more dots in the puzzle. On first haul the enquiries net a prime suspect: an employee who works at the home of a rich businessman, Simon Mitchell Vander, whose son was taught music by one of the victims. Suspicions deepen when the suspect goes underground and the family disappears, driving Vander's daughter from a previous marriage to despair. A brutal mixture of racism, obsession, revenge and sexual perversion is unearthed as the investigators pursue their quarry. As with most mass-market thrillers, nothing is supposed to be as it appears on the surface. Bones, like most Delaware novels, is written in the first-person. While this drives the pace, the narrative suffers from a common pitfall of this literary device - a lack of depth. The psychologist has inadequate levels of self-reflection. The style also blocks any real chance of penetrating the heads of the other characters. Despite his clinical fascination with the darker side of the human condition Bones suffers from a distinct lack of analysis, the very quality the author should be bringing to the literary table. Characterisation falls victim to plot. On the upside he stitches together a tight, if somewhat predictable, story that will keep most readers turning the pages until the final act. Kellerman's style and formula have clearly been successful, winning him a diverse and loyal global readership and financing a comfortable lifestyle. If he focused more closely on the art of writing, instead of its architecture, his novels would be more fulfilling, but maybe not quite as profitable. Writer's notes Name: Jonathan Kellerman Age: 59 Born: New York Lives: Los Angeles Family: married to best-selling novelist Faye Kellerman. They have four children, including author Jesse Kellerman. Genres: psychological thriller; suspense Latest work: Bones, a novel Next project: Evidence, a novel Other works include: Compulsion (2008), Obsession (2008), Rage (2005), Over the Edge (1987), When the Bough Breaks (1985). What the papers say: 'He's not as good or serious a writer as Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos or others at the top of the heap, nor is he as deplorable as James Patterson and his imitators. Kellerman belongs somewhere in the middle.' The Washington Post 'Often mystery writers can either plot like devils or create believable characters. Kellerman stands out because he can do both. Masterfully.' USA Today 'Kellerman's strength is that he can set up an intriguing situation and keep things moving at a breakneck pace. He can also, when he wants to, write well.' The Washington Post
