Product Description

Los Angeles Police Detective Peter Decker had grown very close to Rina's young sons, Sammy and Jake, as he had to their mother, and he looked forward to spending a day of his vacation camping with the boys. A nice reprieve from the grueling work of a homicide cop-until Sammy stumbles upon a gruesome sight...

Two human skeletons, charred beyond recognition, are identified by a forensic dentist as teenage girls--and for Decker, the father of a sixteen-year-old daughter, vacation time is over. Throwing himself professionally and emotionally into the murder case, he launches a very personal investigation: a quest that pulls him deep into the crack dens of Hollywood Boulevard and painfully close to the children of the streets and a nightmare world he must make his own.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #198693 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-01
• Released on: 1999-11-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780380732678
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Peter Decker, detective sergeant in the LAPD, meets young widow Rina Lazarus while investigating an attempted rape at the yeshiva in Deep Canyon where she lives. Rina's religious convictions shape their ensuing relationship and Peter begins the process of converting, in part for his own spiritual needs and in part to be able to marry her. On a camping trip, Rina's young sons discover two charred skeletons, plunging Pete into a case that makes up one thread in this follow-up mystery to Kellerman's The Ritual Bath. Identifying the skeletons via complex dental work (Kellerman is a dentist and the wife of suspense novelist Jonathan Kellerman), Pete traces the murders back to a grisly pornography ring centering around "snuff" films, which climax in death. Wading through the underside of LA's sex-for-sale world, Pete questions the purpose and value of religion in his life. As the horror and death toll mount, he struggles to reconcile the sordid realities with the religious practices of the yeshiva. Pete's growing isolation from Rina and increasing despair comprise the secondperhaps primaryfocus in mystery. Though leaning too heavily on Hebrew words and on details of dentistry, and with more graphic violence than at times seems necessary, Kellerman brings the case to a resounding resolution, suggesting as well a believable conclusion to Pete's personal dilemma even as she leaves his future with Rina unresolved.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A master of mystery." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Moves crisply the characters are deep and well drawn-Faye Kellerman is a talented writer." -- Chicago Sun-Times

From the Inside Flap
Los Angeles police detective Peter Decker is camping with the two young sons of his beautiful, Orthodox Jewish girlfriend Rina Lazarus. When he boys come upon two charred human skeletons, Decker is pulled into a sordid investigation that has "Danger" etched in blood....

Customer Reviews

NARRATOR AND LEAD CHARACTER A PERFECT MATCH
Every once in a while, for this listener, an audio comes along on which the book's lead character and the audio narrator seem as one. In other words, the voice perfectly replicates the way I imagine a character would and should sound. Such is the case with Mitch Greenberg's reading of Sacred and Profane, another in Kellerman's popular Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novels.

Greenberg's voice is deep, strong, mature. And, I discovered in listening that "mature" was important to me. After all LA Police Detective Decker has seen a lot (some of it very unsavory) and done a lot. He's no longer the new kid on any block, and Greenberg captures him perfectly.

Set in Los Angeles during the holidays, we hear Decker say, "Hell, here it was the day of Christmas Eve and he was out camping in the foothills, isolated from civilization, playing big brother to two little boys with yarmulkes. Christmas had never been a big deal to him but still it felt strange. Some habits were hard to shake."

Decker may have gotten more than he bargained for when he became involved with Rina - she is an orthodox Jew and the mother of two young sons. Yet, he can't deny what he feels in his heart and has grown close to all of them. It's his vacation and he's decided to take her two boys, Sammy and Jake, on a camping trip - peaceful, relaxing, and fun.

Their adventure is none of the above as Sammy discovers a hideous sight - the charred remains of two young girls. Decker is a homicide cop through and through as well as being the father of a 16-year-old daughter, so he finds himself involved both professionally and emotionally.

He's an intrepid tracker the trail that he follows leads him into one of the worst parts of his city - the drug hangouts that line Hollywood Boulevard and the children who try to live there. Descriptions of this area and its denizens are frightening.

Again Kellerman has crafted a suspenseful story, gritty and real.

- Gail Cooke

I couldn't give this one enough stars
Excellent! Second book in series. Peter is studying the Jewish faith with a rabi because Reni will not consider a relationship with him unless he is a practicing Jew. He takes her two sons on a camping trip and one of the boys discovers two skeletons. They find out one of the skeletons is a teenage girl who has disappeared. Peter's search for the killer takes him into the porn world and he finds it hard to balance his work with his religious studies. Very good. One day read. Since I gave Ritual Bath 5 stars, I wanted to give this one 6 because it is better.

Second book in series excellent!
"Sacred and Profane," the second novel in the series, opens with Decker camping in the foothills above Los Angles with Rina's sons, Sammy and Jake. Decker is thrown into a deadly case of murder when Rina's oldest son stumbles on two charred human skeletons. A forensic dentist determines that the victims were teenage girls. This rattles Decker and gets him emotionally involved in the case because he is the father of a sixteen year old daughter, living back east with his ex-wife. Detective Decker had two problems. He has to find the killers of two young women from the incredibly seamy world of L.A. porn. and crack dens of Hollywood Boulevard. Although Peter is "technically Jewish" because his birth Mother was a Jew he has to learn to follow Rina's faith or else lose her forever. He begins to take instruction with the rabbi of the Yeshiva. Projecting what will follow in future Decker/Lazarus novels one knows what he outcome will be. No unlike here first book, "The Ritual Bath," this book make very interesting reading.