“…when Honey asked if she and the kids might spend a week with Rina and her family in Los Angeles, Rina thought it strange.“ p 3 Rina Decker’s former classmate Honey Klein married to an ultra-religious Leibbener Chasidic and they rather maintained a very sporadic contact. Now out of the blue, she wants to drop by for a week with only two days‘ notice. The two women’s lifestyles are different: In Honey’s world, there are no TVs or private phones in the houses, no popular fiction or magazines. No phones is a first even to Rina. And Rina, since she married LAPD cop Pete, kind of shifted from orthodox more to modern orthodox Judaism.

At the same time, Pete follows his partner Marge Dunn on a lead to the house of a family that disappeared; husband, wife, two sons in the middle of the school year. Nothing seems to have been searched, nothing taken but the boys passports. Might they have done harm to their parents? Or has the whole family fled? But – why? The husband is a wealthy diamond dealer as is Honey’s husband. Is it a mere coincidence when Honey cannot reach her husband? All the while, Pete and Marge, lately transferred from Juvey to Homicide, have to deal with the snide remarks from their new „Loo“ (Lieutenant) – on women and “niceties“ such as “Looks like the Jews know to hold a buck.“ p 133. But fortunately, Pete and Rina know what a mezuzah is for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezuzah

Author Faye Kellerman tried for something completely new with this one – the routine police procedural was added up with elements in between economic crime, adventure and international/political conspiracy. She has me in with that mix. It turns out with Pete and Rina travelling to Israel, as all traits seem to be leading there, to the namegiving “Sanctuary“ for all Jews, has in it lots of background related to the diamond business and considerations on Jewish marriage and divorce (a nice idea to have a Rabbi go and beat your to-be-ex-husband if he is unwilling to agree with a divorce…) as well as on some of the very different ways of religious approaches in Judaism. Unfortunately, the next four books of the series are missing in my collection. Well, they do as of TODAY

4,5 out of 5 stars (half a star off as some of the adventure/political parts are a slight bit too exaggerated – though I admit I would love to see those in a movie)