Petra Connor Series

Following in the shadow of another famous character is never an easy way to begin a book series. But author Jonathan Kellerman determined that it wasn’t impossible, and actually took the unique opportunity to fuse two series together in a way that allowed a spin-off series (Petra Connor) to evolve from Kellerman’s otherwise famous Alex Delaware books.

Petra made her first appearance in the Alex Delaware book Survival of the Fittest in 1997. Petra later starred in her own novel Billy Straight in 1998, as well as Twisted in 2004. Connor reappeared in other Alex Delaware books such as A Cold Heart in 2003 and Obsession in 2007. The Petra Connor series is officially considered a spin-off of the Alex Delaware series, the first, but not the last. It was later followed by True Detectives, which starred Moses Reed and Aaron Fox, characters from the original Delaware stories.

In Twisted, Petra Connor babysits a college-aged-kid who is a genius when it comes to numbers. He constantly works on statistics problems at all hours, and has theories that are impossible for any detective to ignore. She agrees to allow him to assist her on a case, but soon discovers the pattern behind the killer’s motivation. With a student who is hiding something from her (including an illegal weapon), and a serial killer who is known only to her, Petra finds herself in a twisted situation, far from sanity and far from safe.