Search - Billy Straight (Petra Connor, Bk 1)

A very gripping book because the hero is a 12 year old boy. You can't help rooting for Billy Straight. There are unexpected turns and close encounters that keep your attention and keep you wanting to read long past bedtime.

Good book. Kept my attention the whole time. The protagonist is Petra Connor, who is a side character in a couple of J. Kellerman's "Alex Delaware" mystery novels. She's a detective with the LAPD (a sometime associate of Milo's).

Compelling story; a real page-turner.

A resourceful runaway alone in the wilds of Los Angeles, twelve-year-old Billy Straight suddenly witnesses a brutal stabbing in Griffith Park. Fleeing into the night, Billy cannot shake the horrific memory of the savage violence, nor the pursuit of a cold-blooded killer. For wherever Billy turns-from Hollywood Boulevard to the boardwalks of Venice-he is haunted by the chuck chuck sound of a knife sinking into flesh. As LAPD homicide detective Petra Connor desperately searches for the murderer, as the media swarms mercilessly around the story, the vicious madman stalks closer to his prey. Only Petra can save Billy. But it will take all her cunning to uncover a child lost in a fierce urban labyrinth-where a killer seems right at home...

This was a great read.

Jonathan Kellerman has justly earned his reputation as a master of the psychological thriller. The writing is vivid, the suspense sustained, and he has arranged one final, exquisitely surprising plot twist to confound the complacent reader.- People Magazine