When The Bough Breaks

When The Bough Breaks is the first in the Alex Delaware mystery series by Jonathan Kellerman. It won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. I read it because it was first in a series by a well-respected mystery writer and because it won the Edgar and read it despite the fact that the plot revolves around child endangerment and child abuse. I like the characters and the writing style but not enough to seek out others by this author while I still have so many books in my tbr stack.

from the back of the book:

Dr. Morton Handler practiced a strange brand of psychiatry. Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old Melody Quinn.

It's psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware's job to try to unlock the terrible secret buried in Melody's memory. But as the sinister shadows in the girl's mind begin to take shape, Alex discovers that the mystery touches a shocking incident in his own past.

This connection is only the beginning, a single link in a forty-year-old conspiracy. And behind it lies an unspeakable evil that Alex Delaware must expose before it claims another innocent victim: Melody Quinn.