Product Description

A place of worship is vandalised, daubed swastikas testifying to a hatred that, for a time at least, defies understanding. But the Deckers, Rina and her detective husband Peter, soon realise the violence done to their synagogue can be traced to one deeply disturbed adolescent, Ernesto Golding. Born into privilege but obsessed by the past, he is eventually charged, his case closed. But Peter Decker still worries that others were involved. And six months later Ernesto is found murdered. Suddenly Decker and his family are plunged into a ghastly world of damaged youth, ruthless parents and secrets, with roots deep in the horrors of the last generation, which seem to demand ultimate retribution!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2087768 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Amazon.com Review
L.A. homicide detective Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus, his Orthodox Jewish wife, return in a new entry in this popular series. Faye Kellerman can be counted on to deliver emotional complexity along with suspense, and in The Forgotten it comes from the relationship between Peter and Jacob, Rina's troubled teenage son. Jacob has a personal connection to the event that sets off this intricately plotted novel, the defacing of Rina's synagogue by one of his classmates. Ernesto Golding can't explain why he vandalized the synagogue, but when he and his therapists are murdered months after the incident, Peter realizes that something the teenager told him when admitting his guilt may hold the key to the killings: Ernesto's belief that his grandfather may have been a Nazi who posed as a Jew to escape to South America after the war. Investigating Ernesto's story gives Rina a strand of the plot to tease out; meanwhile, Peter concentrates on another motive for the therapist murders that involves computer fraud, the College Board exams, and the high cost exacted by parents who pressure their teenagers to succeed.

Kellerman skillfully keeps the dramatic tension going as she pulls all the pieces of her complex plot together. But what makes this novel her best yet is her acutely revealing portrait of Jacob, struggling with the existential angst of adolescence as he attempts to reconcile his devotion to Judaism with the temptations of contemporary life, from drugs to sex. She brilliantly limns his search for identity, intimacy, and independence even as he redefines his relationship to Peter and Rina, in a scenario that resounds with psychological truth. The Forgotten is a terrific addition to the Kellerman oeuvre. While she's always been an exceptional illustrator of the emotional life of the family, this time she writes with an expertise that may owe something to professional insights of her husband, author Jonathan Kellerman, who's also a child psychologist. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
In this complex, disturbing novel (after 2000's Stalker), Kellerman again adroitly balances Rina Lazarus's consuming Orthodox Judaism with the broader societal issues faced by her husband, L.A. homicide detective Peter Decker. Here they intertwine when the vicious defacement of their synagogue reverberates in a widening circle of murders. Ernesto Golding, a troubled, spoiled youth and acquaintance of Rina's son, Jacob, confesses to the crime, but several months later Ernesto and his therapists, Mervin and Dee Baldwin, are murdered. Ernesto had discovered that his beloved grandfather may have been a Nazi who escaped Germany disguised as a Jew. While Rina delves into this provocative strand of the plot, Peter and his staff investigate hate groups. Then another killing ties the therapists to not only the hate groups but also an insidious current of psychological and sexual manipulation and computer fraud. Kellerman focuses on the plight of desperate young people misused and misunderstood by their parents, who apply unbearable pressures for success on their often- bewildered children. She also shows the deepening love and rapport between Decker and his stepson as Jacob helps solve the case. Although the Holocaust subplot seems forced to give Rina a larger role, the author, as usual, seamlessly weaves her themes of religious belief and familial respect into a multilayered thriller, with finely realized characters and a tangible sense of place. 250,000 first printing.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus are back, investigating evidence of a hate crime at the local synagogue. But when the teenaged culprit and his two therapists are found murdered, our intrepid team realizes that there's much more afoot.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A tepid and muddled mystery with cardboard characters.
I used to be a fan of Faye Kellerman, but I stopped reading her books a while back. I picked up her new novel, "The Forgotten," to see if she has regained her touch. She hasn't. This latest installment in the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series starts with a horrible act of vandalism. A synagogue is trashed and defiled. Swastikas are painted on the walls and photos of concentration camp victims are left atop torn holy books. Peter Decker, who is a Lieutenant with the LAPD, goes into action and eventually finds the perpetrator of this vandalism. He is seventeen-year-old Ernesto Golding, a rich kid with a very sick mind. The case is closed out, but a series of brutal murders prove that there is more to this story than meets the eye. Golding may have had a grandfather who was a Nazi passing himself off as a Jew. In addition, Golding had ties to a hate group with a shadowy leader. The members of this group, called "Preservers of Ethnic Integrity," may have been involved not only in the vandalism, but in other crimes as well. The biggest problem with "The Forgotten" is that it flits from one plot line to another without any transition. Kellerman actually mixes up a plot about people who hate Jews with a plot about psychologists who help rich kids cheat on their SAT's. Also thrown into the mix is a story line about Peter Decker's stepson, Jacob, who has been mixed up with some of the baddies in the past, and who is now trying to straighten himself out. Peter struggles to come to terms with his responsibilities and his guilt, since he has neglected the boy in the past. The novel has little in the way of character development. The characters are distasteful, dysfunctional and dull. The ending is anticlimactic and very slow in coming. I do not recommend this muddled mystery.

A thought-provoking novel
One of the joys of reading a series is reconnecting with old friends and seeing what changes have occurred from one book to the next.

In THE FORGOTTEN, Lieutenant Peter Decker is investigating a hate crime involving the desecration of a synagogue. Decker manages to solve the case but he's left with an uncomfortable resolution. After being caught, the guilty party does restitution and then six month later goes to a summer camp for troubled rich kids. It is then that he is killed together with his therapist. Naturally, Decker feels that this is retribution from the cohort who may also have been involved in the act of vandalism. Lets just say that it does not turn out that way.

The second plot in the book is of more interest that involves Decker's youngest stepson Jacob. Since the beginning of Kellerman's Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series he has been troubled due to certain circumstances in previous novels. He is now a recovering drug-addict who is trying hard to make amends for everything he's done. The bad part about it in this book is that he is familiar with the players involved in Peter's case. Something he is not to thrilled about. In the end he manages to help the police solve the case and have some one-on-one time with his stepdad. They talk in the end and it end in a funny note. In essence I liked the book and I recommend it.

Something is lacking
I have read all of the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus Novels. Kellerman writes great novels balancing a good detective story with the warm personal relationships between Rina and Peter and their children Cindy, Sammy, Jacob and Hannah, and the team Peter works with in the LAPD. They normally dwell as well on their religious life - the Jewish customs of the devout orthodox Jew, and its affect on their involvement in the secular world - especially Peter's.

This book centers around Rina's son Jacob who knew and had been involved with many of the teens in the story during his rebellion year of drug/sex parties. His brothers and sisters are hardly even mentioned, and we don't see Peter's department team coming for dinner to his home nor any of their private life. We don't see much of Peter's religious life either. I missed the personal full family and team involvement. It brought warmth to the novels in the past.

I had to ask myself - Why was the LAPD homicide department handling a synagogue vandalism case? It didn't make sense, and it was months before there was any homicide.

Still, Kellerman writes an exciting story. If you have read any of the past novels in the series, you knew the characters and the references to happenings in the former books. Something was lacking though, it just wasn't as good as the rest of the series.