Bücher mit dem Tag "pete decker"

»Der Junge stand stocksteif da. Decker bemerkte, daß er glasige Augen hatte. … Vor ihnen lagen zwei verkohlte Skelette. Das eine war bis auf das halbe rechte Bein, das unter Laub und Erde begraben war, ganz zu sehen. Es reckte einen geschwärzten Armknochen samt Faust in die Höhe, als bäte es darum, daß man ihm auf die Beine half. Schädel und Brustbein wiesen Löcher in der Größe eines Silberdollars auf. Am Körper hingen noch vertrocknete, an der Luft verfärbte Hautfetzen.«

Eigentlich wollte sich Sergeant Pete Decker zusammen mit den beiden Söhnen seiner Freundin ein paar schöne gemeinsame Tage beim Campen gönnen. Der Fund zweier Leichen beendet den Urlaub, die beiden Kinder sind nach dem schlimmen Erlebnis traumatisiert und Decker darf sich sofort in die Mordermittlungen stürzen.

Das Obduktionsergebnis, wonach es sich bei den Ermordeten um zwei junge Mädchen handelt, macht die Arbeit für Pete, der selbst Vater einer sechzehnjährigen Tochter ist, nicht leichter. Zumal ihn seine Nachforschungen in die wirklich tiefsten menschlichen Abgründe führen werden…

Auch privat ist für ihn keine Entspannung angesagt, hat er sich doch in die strenggläubige Jüdin Rina Lazarus verliebt und bemüht sich, dem jüdischen Glauben näherzukommen und sich in die strengen Vorschriften der orthodoxen Gemeinde einzuleben. Ein schwieriges Unterfangen für einen Polizisten…

Ein wirklich fesselnder Krimi war das wieder! Die Thematik ist ganz schön heftig, Hintergrund und Umfeld der Tat grauslich-faszinierend. Es wird verzwickt, es wird spannend und bis zur stimmigen Auflösung kann der Leser mitermitteln.

Decker ist mir sympathisch, denn er ist ein vielschichtiger Charakter mit Stärken und Schwächen. Letztere kann ich bei seiner Partnerin Marge noch nicht entdecken, die ist eigentlich immer zuverlässig, klug, witzig… Nun ja, es ist erst der zweite Band der Reihe, vielleicht taucht später noch mal irgendeine Schwäche bei ihr auf.

Eine wichtige Rolle bei den Ermittlungen spielt übrigens auch eine Zahnärztin, die regelmäßig der Polizei bei der Identifizierung von Leichen hilft. Die Autorin weiß dabei, wovon sie schreibt, denn sie ist selber auch Zahnärztin.

Das private Umfeld Deckers in der jüdischen Gemeinde finde ich hochinteressant und ich stellte beim Lesen fest, wie wenig ich über den praktizierten jüdischen Glauben weiß. Eins wird klar: So zu leben, lernt man nicht nebenbei, das ist hochkompliziert, eine wirklich andere Welt. Schade fand ich, dass ein Glossar fehlte, obwohl wirklich sehr viele jüdische Begriffe benutzt und immer wieder hebräische Sätze und Floskeln eingeworfen werden. Natürlich kann man der Handlung auch folgen, wenn man nicht alles übersetzen kann, aber ich persönlich möchte beim Lesen alles verstehen und zwar möglichst, ohne ständig googeln zu müssen.

Die Reihe um Pete Decker hat wirklich viele Bände, ich bin gespannt, wie es weitergeht. Zumindest in diesen Band 2 könnte man einsteigen, ohne den Vorgänger zu kennen. Und auch, wenn man neugierig ist, ob es eine Zukunft für Pete und Rina geben wird, ist die Handlung ansonsten abgeschlossen und man muss nicht zwanghaft zum Folgeband greifen. Werde ich aber trotzdem tun ;-)

Fazit: Sehr spannender Krimi mit interessanter Rahmenhandlung. Hier lese ich gerne weiter.

Langatmige und akribische Ermittlungen mit sehr viel Szenen aus dem Privatleben des Hauptprotagonisten ließen mich etwas ratlos zurück. Der Schreibstil ist gut, Umgebungsbeschreibungen und Protgaonisten sind gut erfasst und Ablauf ist logisch. Drei Handlungsfäden liefen parallel und keiner wurde aufgelöst. Ich will nicht spoilern, aber das Buch hat kein wirkliches Ende. Zudem ist der Titel irreführend. Vom Doppelleben mit Wollust weist ein einziges Foto hin und wird dabei sogar noch beiläufig erwähnt. Die Gefahr, in die Decker geriet konnte ich nicht entdecken und das Ermittlerpaar Rina Lazarus und Peter Decker existiert nicht; Rina ist seine Frau… Also, irreführende Klappen- und Rückentexte , der langatmige Inhalt und das nicht vorhandene Ende waren für mich eher enttäuschend.
Wie auch immer - Wer eine Endlos-Soap möchte, ist hier gut bedient!

This book is so completely different, both, different from the average crime series book, AND from the Decker/Lazarus series, that I even felt obliged to write about it differently.

First, skip the cover text. It tells you Detective Seargeant Pete Decker is called to investigate the murder of a high school student. True so, but this is not really what makes the book special AND different. Author Kellerman starts with the short scene of a memoir. Then you will get a very few pages of insight to the topical situation at home with the Deckers: there is an active rapist at loose in Columbia, where Decker’s 21-year-old daughter Cindy from his first marriage is studying. Off course, he is worried. But, completely unlike any other book in the series so far, Little else from the private lives of the Deckers‘, even less from their religious lives (the family are orthodox jews and I really appreciated highly in the books so far to learn from a world completely unknown to me before).

Instead, after this short preamble, the reader is in the middle of - what: a love story? A coming-of-age story, a typical US-High-School-story, the good but nerdy girl falls in love hopelessly with the bad but popular boy who does not notice her until he needs her…Yepp, I have seen this in movies quite a few times before, even if I am German (no high school round here, rather a number of different school types for secondary education, no prom queen, and we are allowed to drink any alcohol at age 18, beer or wine  even younger – but get full driving permits only at 18…). Still that setup sometimes unnerved me: yes, I do understand falling in love completely, but I never got this Twilight = Shades of Grey thing where girls were willing to abide by any of the guy’s rules without ever thinking; just because it was “for love“ and go by living completely dependent on the fella. I bet the world is full of badly beaten up women and old ladies without an old age pension of their own (or girls going for it thinking he would pay for it all to the very end) due to that attitude.

So, I do get what it is that attracts the two kids, and then again – not at all. Too much of the aforementioned for me. Plus, that  “I did not have sex with that woman“ – thing : “He began to explore my flesh, his left hand resting between my legs, fingertips inching into the pleads of my womanhood. …

It wasn’t sex but it was pretty damn close. An exquisite compromise that took us through the night.“ p 226 Nope, it does not get any more explicite, yes, they may NOT have had intercourse, but I just would not call that no sex either.

So, in general, the whole plot does have a dead person, some surprise murders (just read on) and a pretty unique setup and storyline, but I do not completely buy it. Judging by other reviews, you either love this or hate it, probably going by whether you get along with that type of love story or not.

3 stars. I will pick the next in the series.

If you want to just try the series, go for book no 1 (The Ritual Bath) and this, no 4, no 4 being for me the slightly better of the two, but no 1 should be needed to understand the whole context.

Newlyweds Peter Decker and his wife Rina, formerly Lazarus, spend an unusual honeymoon – visiting Rina’s ex-parents-in-law: with the death of Rina’s first husband from brain cancer, they lost their son, now their grandsons Sammy and Yonkie will be raised by Rina with Pete. So the LAPD-cop wants to help Rina make them feel more comfortable, still feeling a lot out of place in the strictly jewish-orthodox enviroment in New York, standing out despite his own decision for Judaism, though for a more moderate form. Too many ghosts for the Lazarus family, leave alone the very tiny housing conditions, especially with a large man like him. It is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year’s celebration, with Yom Kippur to come, the Day of Atonement, namegiver to the book’s title. And as if this were not tricky enough, Pete had not known that the friends to come over to the Lazarus‘ home would open a pandora’s box he had avoided ever so long. And then, the group comes to realize a troubled teenage boy is missing. Pete goes into cop-mode.

There are so many things I just love about this book. There is a decent enough crime story – sometimes you get to read a story about good kids doing stupid stuff and just do not get to understand why. Here, author Kellerman clevery describes how the very protected and isolated upbringing of the young boy made him ever so much more vulnerable. Of course, the reader will get a gripping hunt – including how much footwork is included in police investigations. There even are some psycho thriller portions with the involvement of some rather gory details and very nasty crimes. And the reader will learn a lot more about Pete Decker, see him under real pressure.

Kellerman, herself orthodox according to Wikipedia, has cop Decker be the one to evaluate and ponder religious matters. He is new to living by religious laws and thus more given to criticism. So when he escapes the claustrophobic situation at the Lazarus‘ home, his thoughts are: „Just a hundred years ago, hundreds of Jews had poured into America, working ninety hours a week for a better life, for a chance to get out of the ghetto. But for some, so much freedom had seemed too frightening.
Solution: Why not bring the ghetto into America?
And Rina chose this voluntarily.“ p. 21
The book gives you a wonderful insight again into religious rituals, this time the aforementioned holy days, not without backing this up with the differences for the various religous groups and some further details. I really enjoy if a crime story goes deeper and gives you some more more of a grip to matters of society and had dearly missed that type of information in book no 3. Kellerman intertwines the purpose of Yom Kippur wonderfully and tightly with the events around the disappearance, so no way of one being just the stooge for the other. To the protagonists, religion and everyday activity, it’s all linked. To the story, each carries the other along, without lecturing. And not to forget the irony behind some of the events, like when Pete tries to talk his wife out of wishing to possess a gun for self defence:
Peter: “If you sell the gun.“
„Peter, it should be my decision, not yours.“
„You’re my wife! According to Jewish law, I bought you.“
Rina glared at him: „I hate when you use religion to prove a point.“ p 158 Not the only time when Peter really messes up badly…

I REALLY LOVED TO READ THIS. You have a short sequence in the beginning which left me wondering all through the rest of the book. Then you find the police at the site of the murder of a successful, renowned and wealthy heart surgeon, who also excelled at being deeply religious and very philantrophic. But who could have committed the ghastly crime? And, furthermore, why?

This is number 9 in the Decker/Lazarus series but it might be read on its own – any reference to the past will be explained in this very book, thus not requiring to have read the other titles but offering more insight to some of the past than the first eight books did. I liked the clever trick author Kellerman did about that.

The case is complex, it is topical, and motivations go way beyond what I had expected. LAPD Lieutenant Decker, now newly appointed head of the operations, finds himself unexpectedly personnally involved – his wife Rina knew the dead man. And more, she once was close to one of his sons, who turned away from the proprietary christian beliefs of his family to become a catholic priest. Investigations include researching within the victim’s large family, with grown-up children not even close to their father’s success or money, a biker gang, and the victims extended business activities. The setup kept me wondering all throughout the book. For those sensitive about that, no sexual assault in this book, and the gory details left reduced to what the cops see when finding a dead body (well, that can hardly be hygienical very often).

Apart from the aforementioned fact that you might start on the series with this book, those who know it will love to learn that, finally, Rina is back to play a significant role, not only privately, but, much to Decker’s dislike, in the case. Same is true for Decker’s former “partner in crime“, cop Marge Dunn. Also, Judaism again plays a bigger role: Decker married an orthodox jewish wife, same background you may find out about the author. Along with the books, some of the tradition is being explained, this time, the namegiving prayers for the dead and some others. Additionally, the author enters a field you might consider the counterpart for christians, constantly mentioning that the dead doctor was a fundamentalist and even disapproved about one of his sons becoming “only“ a catholic. Yes, there are pretty fundamentalist sects within christian belief but they probably would not call themselves thus nor would anybody openly refer to them as such all the time. It sounds a bit either PC or not knowing that Kellerman does not just give that group a name, she might at least have picked an invented one (there is one someplace, but less often than “fundamentalist“ which sounds rather awkward).

This minor point of criticism does not lessen how much I really enjoyed this book. A solid 5 stars.

Big day for LAPD cop Pete Decker and wife Rina – they are in hospital for the birth of the new baby daughter, all along with Pete’s daughter Cindy from his first marriage and Rina’s two sons Sammy and Jake from her late first husband and her parents and Pete’s partner Marge Dunn. And as if that weren’t enough of a load, there is a serious issue with Rina and then all of a sudden, a young baby girl disappears, from the same nursery the Decker’s baby is in. Despite all of his worries and some serious lack of sleep, that hits too close to home for Pete. The nursery probably just was not simply understaffed but seriously neglecting any security procedure: 19-year-old Cindy who really took for her baby sister ended up being the only person on site with all of the babies, left there by nurse Darlene. As her dad puts it, p „She’s asking for a tragedy and a lawsuit.“ p 70 But did bossy nurse Marie kidnap the infant or was she indeed yet another victim?

Lots of Rina AND Marge Dunn, but also for the first time lots of Cindy. She feels guilty as the little girl disappeared while she had been left alone in the nursery and is very emotional about her little sister and how she might have been in danger, too. Unfortunately for Pete, the 19-year-old student of criminal science starts to flirt with the reality rather than the academic approach to crime investigation and gives her dad quite something to worry about. „But that was Dad. Worried that she wasn’t having enough fun. And then when she tried to have some fun, he’d worry for her safety.
It was an occupational hazard of his job, always seeing the world as a battlefield. That’s why she’d decided to study criminal science from an academic viewpoint. Still, it must be thrilling to be tossed in the thick of it.“ p 94 But then, her stubbornness and passion do not come from nowhere. Watch out, LAPD!

Again, as in most books, author Faye Kellerman sets something in the situation for the Deckers in contrast to something related with the investigation. That IS repetetive (I have complained about that in general for most series like this before), but I really appreciate that more and more with each Decker volume: Kellerman creates an issue and different approaches people might take or just simply different situations they are in when something really hits them. That quite often makes all the difference and gives the reader something to think about, if only for a while. It lifts the series beyond the „mere crime“ books. Most books of the series dwell upon a specific issue of Judaism, too (Rina is orthodox and Decker followed suit). This time, there is some really emotional discussion about God and how to carry on if misfortune strikes that should be more universal for most any religion: „We don’t understand Hashem’s ultimate design. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask.“….„You may ask. You may not get, but you may ask.“ p 89 and some really wonderful remark from Rabbi Schulman, whom I have grown to like a lot in the series „Rina Miriam, you should do whatever you need to do to get you over this difficult time. … Judaism has a lot of rituals, a lot of non-negotiable behaviors. But we also allow for a great deal of personal freedom. Personal freedom and its sister trait, personal responsibility, are what make the religion so hard. But they are also what make the religion so satisfying.“ p 91. Kellerman manages to explain her religion in quite a great way.
A very solid 4 out of 5 stars – I found the ending somewhat repetetive, in particular compared to the book before – and some of the theme of it a bit too overly conventional. As this sequel does not have that many cross references to others in the series, readers should be capable to read it standalone.

Cop Pete Decker gets an assignment for a rape case – to add up, victim Lilah Brecht’s safe is empty, her house is a mess and she was beaten up. Working juvey, Pete is used to deal with rape victims – some react against a male cop with lots of distrust, others rather try to bond as a result from the shock. Lilah is a special woman: “She burst into tears. Decker handed her a box of Kleenex and waited. Ordinarily, he might have patted her hand or shoulder. But something stopped him from touching this woman.“ p 92 His gut instinct is just right – the woman is beautiful, rich, sexy, used to getting things her way. And that is Pete, with what type of work she wants him to do and as a man. Great deal, while he has enough of a load with his beloved new wife Rina pregnant, the two young sons from her first marriage just about to adjust with the changes in the family, and Pete’s daughter from his respective first marriage just not adjusting all too well.

Lilah’s family is not too helpful, either: her mom, ex-B-moviestar Davida Eversong, worries rather about her jewels that got stolen from Lilah’s safe, and then there is a full load of brothers and employees at the spa run by Lilah to interfere. So what is this all about? It might be something personal, a raid gone wrong or a special attempt to get either the memoirs written by Lilah’s father, the jewels or Lilah. The case gets some impetus when a suspect can be identified from traces in Lilah’s bed and somebody goes missing…

Back again 8 months after Pete Decker and Rina (formerly Lazarus) got married; with Rina pregnant and slightly more emotional, there is a medium level of her involvement in the storyline – fine with me, as long as it does not become less of her. More from Pete’s partner Marge Dunn – great. This time, there is less of an insight in Judaism, and the orthodox portion is hardly played at all, just standard religious routine along the way. With book no 2, that was about similar –you will have lots of patchwork family experience in this book which I found highly entertaining and realistic. The solution is very much different from standard schemes, really beyond ‘open‘ or ‘not open‘ – I rather appreciated that.

Now there is one of the reasons coming up why I love to read book series and what seriously bugs me about them.  Something is repetetive – and that is what you get accustomed to and what wears you out the same. The Decker Lazarus books are part re-read (the first ones) part new or shelf of unread books (SUB), like this one. After a while, some habits really become a pain in the lower back: Pete Decker is a cop, still, most of the crimes he gets to solve in the installments do not come to him as a professional, he rather happens to stumble into them.
No 2, Sacred and Profane: his stepson finds two charred corpses when they go camping
No 3, Milk and Honey, driving around at night, Decker spots a toddler – the pajamas soaked in blood.
No 4, Day of Atonement, Deckers honeymooning and visiting family – a boy disappears. This time, the cop is rather driving around privately, but decides to take a call. Well – half-o.k., then. Oh, and: you will always find one way to handle an issue with Pete or his family repeated, but differently, in the case, I noticed, like discussion different approaches. THAT is a repetition I consider to go beyond standard crime novels.
5 stars, with at least one of them for the realistic patchwork family portion and the special ending.

»In der Senke lag Sarah Libba. Schmutzig, mit zerfetzter Kleidung, das schmale Gesicht naß von Schlamm, der ihr über die Wangen und die nackten Brüste rann. Auch die Beine waren nackt bis auf den Schlüpfer, der sich um ihre Knöchel gewickelt hatte …
Rina stolperte, fing sich wieder und beugte sich zu Sarah herunter, die vor ihr zurückzuckte wie ein verletztes Tier. Als Rina sich hinkniete, konnte sie die frischen Blutergüsse in Sarahs Gesicht erkennen.
Sarah ballte eine Hand zur Faust und schlug sich heftig an die Brust. Sie richtete den Blick zum Himmel und bewegte die Lippen in lautlosem Gebet.«

Die Frauen der jüdisch-orthodoxen Gemeinde sind schockiert. Ein Unbekannter überfiel und vergewaltigte eine junge Frau, die gerade aus dem rituellen Tauchbad gekommen war. Die Lehrerin Rina Lazarus, die sich um das Tauchbad kümmert und das Opfer gefunden hat, scheint die einzige Zeugin zu sein, weshalb Detective Pete Decker vom Los Angeles Police Department auf ihre Mithilfe hofft. Leider findet sich jedoch kein Ermittlungsansatz und noch dazu wird Rina das Gefühl nicht los, dass irgendjemand sie verfolgt…

Ein ungewöhnlicher Krimi, der den Leser in eine Welt entführt, die so gänzlich fremd erscheint, obwohl sie mitten in einer Stadt wie Los Angeles liegt. Die kleine Gemeinde lebt nach strengen Glaubensgrundsätzen, bleibt für gewöhnlich unter sich und betrachtet jeden Fremden mit Misstrauen. Ich erfuhr beim Lesen so einiges über diese jüdische Glaubensrichtung, von dem ich zuvor noch nie gehört hatte. Das machte die Handlung umso interessanter – und die Ermittlungsarbeit für den Detective umso schwieriger.

Die Charaktere empfand ich als vielschichtig und sympathisch, den Fall als durchgehend spannend mit der Möglichkeit zum Mitermitteln. Es gibt mehrere Verdächtige, eine zeitgleiche Serie von Sittlichkeitsdelikten in der Stadt und natürlich in der Vergangenheit schon häufiger antisemitisch begründete Vorfälle. Pete Decker ist sich jedenfalls schnell sicher, dass weitere Taten zu befürchten sind und daher Eile angesagt ist. Davon abgesehen fühlt er sich von Rina angezogen, doch eine Beziehung zwischen den beiden scheint unmöglich.

Dass es doch eine Beziehung geben wird, erschließt sich aus der Tatsache, dass wir es hier mit dem ersten Band der mittlerweile 22 Bände umfassenden Decker/Lazarus-Reihe zu tun haben. 22 ist eine beeindruckende Zahl, doch mir gefiel der erste Band so gut, dass ich hier sicher weiterlesen werde.

Fazit: Spannender Krimi mit hochinteressantem Hintergrund. Habe ich in einem Rutsch gelesen.

The crime is solved from the very start. While different guests are dining at pricey Estelle’s in Los Angeles,  a man with a green jacket enters mostly unnoticed. That is, until the shooting starts. In the end, many of the diners are dead, and so is the man with the green jacket, gun close to his hand. Everything is solved? Well, there are some lose ends. A job to be done by LAPD Lieutenant Peter Decker and his team.

This case where everything seemed obvious took some good 60 pages to captivate me – well, it would have been way more, had I not read the text on the inner cover sleeve. Why the heck is it that some publishers have it to try and ruin it with this weird thing of going for a better pitch that just gives away too much? Anyway, this is a police procedural, so it is pretty OBVIOUS there is more to the killing – I just wish that where you are as a reader after the first quarter of the book would not have been spoiled on the book’s cover.

This is REALLY police procedural with emphasis on procedural. You wonder if anything is ever going to happen when actually you know who committed which crime from the beginning and what is really behind it from the cover summary (or from after the first quarter of pages). So, yes, it is probably realistic in as far as investigations might be dull – but is also is dull to read, at least some of the pages. Then, when it gets you to fast-turn the pages, it is also a bit of a far-fetched plot – that dual setup and the whole of the Decker’s involved etc.

There are references to the book before this – without explaining, so this cannot really be understood without having read book number 9, “Prayers for the Dead“ – not needed for the solution of this case, but still mentioned more than once. Oh, yes, and the exlamation marks. I read that in some other review and thus could not help seeing them. Faye Kellerman is big in exclamation marks and italics eg. page 202 But she is also big with a certain humor like when talking about preferring to be a cop rather than with the Feds: ‘...I really want to solve crimes, not wear sunglasses.‘  p 119

So does that make up for it? Not completely – I do not like having to go halfway through a book before it gets to me and then, what gets to me is a bit too much, and a large bit of it.
3 stars.

»Bist aber ein anschmiegsames kleines Ding. Erstaunlich, daß ich dich überhaupt gesehen hab‘. Muß wohl der glänzende Reißverschluß an deinem Pyjama…«
»Jama«, sagte das Kind.
»Yeah, Pyjama. Was hat der überhaupt für ’ne Farbe? Rot? Na ja, irgendwie rötlich. Ich wette, du bist ein Mädchen.«
»Mechen«, plapperte das Kind nach.
Decker verging das Lächeln. Irgendwas war in der Luft. Jetzt roch er es – ein unangenehmer Geruch an seinen Händen und vorn auf dem Pyjama des Kindes. Geronnenes Blut.

Ein Schock für Pete Decker vom Los Angeles Police Department! Nicht nur, dass er mitten in der Nacht ein nicht mal zweijähriges Kind am Straßenrand findet, ist auch noch sein Schlafanzug voller Blut! Das Kleine ist unverletzt, aber verstört und hat womöglich Dinge erlebt, die man selbst als Erwachsener nicht mitbekommen möchte. Bei der Suche nach den Eltern stößt Decker dann auch bald auf ein furchtbares Verbrechen…

Dieser Krimi hat mich wirklich begeistert! Die Handlung war sehr spannend, die Hintergründe faszinierend-schockierend. Während seiner Ermittlungen trifft Decker auf ein breites Spektrum menschlicher Abgründe und möglicher Mordmotive, die Spannung bleibt durchgehend hoch und die Aufklärung erscheint schlüssig.

Natürlich ermittelt Pete Decker nicht allein, ihm zur Seite steht ein Team von interessanten Charakteren. Ich mag besonders Marge, seine Partnerin. Sie ist eine wirklich tolle Frau, klug, witzig und zupackend. Entsprechend groß ist ihr Anteil an den Ermittlungserfolgen.

Im Privatleben wird Pete ebenfalls gefordert. Noch immer versucht er, ein religiöser Jude zu werden – Voraussetzung für eine Ehe mit seiner Freundin Rina, einer strenggläubigen Jüdin.

Außerdem ist ein alter Freund aufgetaucht, mit dem er zusammen in Vietnam war. Die beiden verbindet eine von anfangs unbekannten Dingen belastete Freundschaft, zudem wird Pete von Erinnerungen geplagt, die er vermutlich lange verdrängt hatte. Und als wenn das noch nicht reichen würde, wurde der Freund wegen einer schweren Vergewaltigung angeklagt und hofft, dass Pete seine Unschuld beweisen kann.

Viel Stoff also – und alles von der Autorin großartig umgesetzt. Ich bin durch das Buch geflogen und lese bei der Reihe gerne weiter! Diesmal gab es auch ein Glossar mit jüdischen/hebräischen Begriffen, das mir beim Band davor gefehlt hatte.

Fazit: Sehr spannend! Für mich stimmte bei diesem Krimi alles.

“…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)