Rating: 
Summary: not great
Review: i thought this book was very slow. i couldn't get into the plot at all. eventually i just skimmed and skipped sections to get to the end so that it would be finished.
Rating: 
Summary: One of her best
Review: I absolutely think this is one of her best. I really liked that she brought Chris Whitman Donatti back into the series. He appears to be an equal in intelligence to Peter Decker, and therefore made the plot even more exciting. His good guy/bad guy role kept me glued to the book.Keep him and Terry coming back!!
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry I bought this one
Review: I've read all of Ms Kellerman's Peter and Rina Decker books. The earlier ones are the best. Now her stories seem to get weaker with each new one. The characters and their motivations in this outing were just not credible. Peter Decker takes vacation time from his job and volunteers to look for a missing teenager. He continues to pursue the case even though the people for whom he is acting turn on him. His reasons to do so seem very thin. Peter and Rina's perfect marriage is getting harder to credit. Hiding important information from each other the way these two do would destroy a marriage, not make it stronger. The story itself wasn't much better. The supposed psycho criminal from Decker's past kept popping up like a jack-in-the-box without any reason except the plot needed juicing up about then. It was just annoying. The switch to first person for one of the characters was jarring. Why was this character brought into the story anyway? Finally the ending was particularly poor. The deus ex machina contrivance to climax the story went against the personalities developed for practically all the characters. In particular it involved Peter in behavior and attitudes strongly at variance with his persona as developed in earlier books. One wishes Ms Kellerman would re-read her earlier works. Perhaps she would be reminded of what made them work and what made this one fail.
Rating:
Summary: Jeeze, is this really a Faye Kellerman book?
Review: What a shame. It's just too awful. I can't believe this is Faye Kellerman's work. I've previousely enjoyed many or her novels. This one, Stone Kiss, is an endless volumne of senseless diatribe. Everything is repeated again and again. Got me. I'm half way through and have almost put it down three times. I'm going to brave it out because of loyalty to the dear lady. But shoot, I wonder if it's time for her to quit writing? I remember reading some of Agatha Christie's last works. Eee gads. They too, were filled with nonsense.
Rating: 
Summary: Another successful book by Kellerman
Review: In this latest book in Faye Kellerman's series featuring Peter and Rina Decker, the couple are called to New York to assist Peter's half-brother, whose brother-in-law has been killed and whose niece is missing. Peter, who is both a veteran cop and a devout Jew, acts as a liaison between the tight-knit Jewish community to which his family belongs and the NYPD. Doing his own investigation, he gets reinvolved with Chris Donatti, a manipulative killer with whom he shares a strange bond. The mystery in this book is relatively routine, but Kellerman does a good job at making it interesting. And the family drama which often dominates her stories takes a bit of a back seat this time. Instead, the best parts of the story involve the interaction between the Deckers and Donatti. Except for some rather jarring moments later in the book when she switches to first person point-of-view, this is another good crime story from Kellerman, who has proven to be consistently good over the past few years (although I was not pleased with her non-Decker story, Moon Music). I also have my usual gripe that these stories should not be called "Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus" novels as Rina has had the Decker surname for over a decade in both real and book time; I suppose that is more the publisher than the author, however. If you're a Faye Kellerman fan, you should enjoy this latest novel. If not, however, this is not the place to start as it refers a lot to older books.
Rating: 
Summary: This sounds familiar
Review: This book sounds a bit like one of the earlier ones in the series where Peter Decker is searching for a lost family member. Peter's biological brother's brother-in-law (are you following me here?) is killed and his niece is missing. Peter is called from LA to help the family, yet every time he tries, he is rebuffed by them. He and Rina are supposed to go to see his parents in Florida but Peter keeps putting this off to work on the case. (I have a lot more trouble changing airline tickets than Rina seems to.) Besides the plot being somewhat a rehash, there is also the return of Chris Denotti, a psycho killer and sexual predator who needs to disappear from the series but who seems to be set up in this book to return again. Also the relationship between Peter, his adopted brother and his biological brother is revisited, but there are no new insights. The plot is dark and somewhat complex and is not as satisfying as most of the other books in the series. Still, Kellerman fans should probably give this one a chance.
Rating:
Summary: Not the best !
Review: Before reading this book, I had read "The constant garderner" of Le Carré, after having read it, I read "Death in the holy orders" of P.D.James. To that , I shall add that I have read all Kellerman (both Ks)'s books, but this is just a fast-read book, without any depth, with irrealistic and incoherent situations, meeting for instance this "psycho-killer" who will bring back peace in the mind of the child molested in vol. 1 of the complete series ! No research in the psyche of the characters, it is as watching a thriller, not as reading a book asking for more than simply action!
Rating:
Summary: An unusual joining of different worlds
Review: If you describe just the crime and apprehension of the criminals in most novels, and nothing else, you'd see a pattern of sameness that makes most of these stories boring after awhile. Especially the apprehension part. It's frustrating in some good stories, even in the ones where there is good storytelling to see it end in a shootout. So what makes crime novels worth reading (and reviewing) are the worlds created in these stories. That's what I judge this type of book on. And so it goes with this story. A Los Angeles detective returns to New York after a long absence to investigate the killing of a relative. A twist in this one is that the dead man's teenage niece, the last person to see him alive, is missing. And here is where it gets good. The family of the murdered man is Jewish, which wouldn't be anything unusual, except that several are very Orthodox. This starts to make it good because the very rigid lives these folks lead, or at least are supposed to lead, provide stark contrast to where the story goes next. It is here where we are taken into the world of runaway girls, pornography, prostitution, drug dealing, and organized crime. It's a very gritty world without a lot of joy, but I'll only reveal that the protagonists search takes him there. Whether the missing girl is involved in any of this, or to what extent the other Orthodox practitioners are I will leave to you to find out by reading it. Let's just say that all people are well, human, and it's a good thing the God they believe in is a forgiving one.
Rating:
Summary: Rina and Peter rock!!!!
Review: Faye Kellerman writes with passion and also educates us not familiar with the jewish religion. She is a best-selling author of this unltra-successful series about Peter Decker, a California cop and his jewish wife, Rina Lazarus and family. Kellerman is always putting Decker between a rock and a hard place; to the readers astonishment he always makes out okay. She builds tension and suspense in her books, ascending to a crescendo. This is a crackling good yarn that flies by and I was glued to the pages. Chris Donatti is a creepy and generally evil thug; however the ending will shock and surprise you. Faye and Jonn just better and better. For a die-hard horror fan and aspiring writer like me, that it is the highest compliment I can give.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad but try her earlier works.
Review: If you are considering the purchase of this book and have not read the earlier (superior) entries in this series, I recommend that you procure earlier works, especially 'Ritual Bath', 'Milk And Honey', 'Grievous Sin", 'False Prophet' and 'Sanctuary'. These books show the true measure of Kellerman's writing skills. That said I thought this book was pretty good. It takes us back to Borough Park and Decker's biological roots and continues to explore the relationship between Peter (Decker) and Rina (Lazarus) and their families. I was disappointed with 'The Forgotten' and 'The Stalker' so I'm glad I was able to enjoy this latest tale. However, I still urge anyone who has not read Kellerman's earlier works to do so now. They're great!
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