Book Summary and Reviews of The Golem of Hollywood by Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman

The Golem of Hollywood by Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman

The Golem of Hollywood

by Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman

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  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2014, 560 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From Jonathan Kellerman, the #1 New York Times bestselling author and master of psychological suspense, and Jesse Kellerman, the international #1 bestselling author of The Genius, comes one of the most remarkable novels of the year.
 
A burned-out L.A. detective ... a woman of mystery who is far more than she seems... a grotesque, ancient monster bent on a mission of retribution. When these three collide, a new standard of suspense is born.

The legend of the Golem of Prague has endured through the ages, a creature fashioned by a sixteenth-century rabbi to protect his congregation, now lying dormant in the garret of a synagogue. But the Golem is dormant no longer.

Detective Jacob Lev wakes one morning, dazed and confused: He seems to have picked up a beautiful woman in a bar the night before, but he can't remember anything about the encounter, and before he knows it, she has gone. But this mystery pales in comparison to the one he's about to be called on to solve. Newly reassigned to a Special Projects squad he didn't even know existed, he's sent to a murder scene far up in the hills of Hollywood Division. There is no body, only an unidentified head lying on the floor of a house. Seared into a kitchen counter nearby is a single word: the Hebrew for justice.

Detective Lev is about to embark on an odyssey through Los Angeles, through many parts of the United States, through London and Prague, but most of all, through himself. All that he has believed to be true will be upended and not only his world, but the world itself, will be changed.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Two masters of psychological suspense weave a sprawling contemporary whodunit steeped in religious mythology, gruesome violence and the supernatural... [This] is a witty, propulsive and frequently chilling read; its phantasmagorical elements are blended seamlessly enough with its up-to-the-minute crime-genre trappings to give its imaginative speculations some eerie plausibility." - Kirkus Reviews

"Combining the procedural structure of Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware novels with the character-driven plotting of son Jesse's fiction, the novel is a solidly plotted thriller that takes its compelling lead character, Detective Lev, deep into some Old World mysteries. Very nicely done." - Booklist

"An extraordinary work of detection, suspense, and supernatural mystery. I spent three days totally lost in the world Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman have created. This is brilliant, page-turning fiction with mythic underpinnings that give it a special resonance; a rare collaboration where the sum is truly greater than the parts. The book is like nothing I've ever read before. It sort of took my breath away." - Stephen King

This information about The Golem of Hollywood was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Barbara K

The Golem of Hollywood ... and beyond!
This strange but compelling tale kept me guessing until the end. It haunts me still! I recommend it!

JeanneW

Like Two Different Books
I read this book by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman because I'm a Jonathan Kellerman fan, but it's definitely not his best. It seemed as though it was trying to be a police procedural with an added supernatural element and for me it didn't work. The mystery story and the golem story never meshed and I don't get the beetle part at all. I did like Jacob Lev and I wouldn't mind reading more about him but without the religious/supernatural aspect.

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