Desde la oscuridad

August 10, 2009
When billionaire developer Guy Kaffey, his wife and assorted employees are brutally murdered, police lieutenant Pete Decker investigates the motives and alibis of the remaining Kaffeys, while Rina, out on jury duty, is largely absent from the main plot. It's a fortuitous development: Mitchell Greenberg offers a slight shift in pitch for Rina, but he shines when capturing the tough-but-reasonable Decker, the gruff-but-romantic detective Scott, and the many members of a Mexican family, whose accented English he performs with subtlety and finesse. A Morrow hardcover (Reviews, Jun. 15).

June 15, 2009
In bestseller Kellerman's solid 18th novel to feature L.A. police detective Lt. Peter Decker and his wife, Rina (after The Mercedes Coffin
), Rina finds that some jury duty should include hazardous duty pay. A shooting rampage at the 70-acre compound and mansion owned by shopping mall magnate Guy Kaffey leaves Kaffey, his wife and two guards dead. Kaffey's oldest son, Gil, apparently was left for dead and two other guards are missing. A plethora of suspects and motives has Decker and his colleagues looking at Guy's brother, Mace, and Guy's younger son, Grant, as well as the missing guards, other household staff, the remaining off-duty staff and possibly business rivals. Decker's cool professionalism is thoroughly tested when a chance courtroom encounter thrusts Rina into the case and puts her in harm's way. Kellerman expertly keeps interlocking investigations moving along with a minimum of confusion but plenty of doubt as to the guilty party or parties.

July 1, 2009
A cop's wife IDs a suspect.

Nothing is routine for Rina Lazarus, not even a call to jury duty. Even though husband Peter Decker is with the LAPD, she's impaneled anyway. During a lunch break the court translator, who's blind, asks Rina to describe two men he's been eavesdropping on. The pair have just admitted knowing details about L.A.'s newest high-profile case, the slaying of real-estate developer Guy Kaffey, his wife, their private security guards and their maid. One Kaffey son was left for dead but survives, while the other, along with Guy's brother Mace, flies in from the East Coast, where they're overseeing a project that's hemorrhaging money. Clues lead Peter to the notorious Bodega 12th Street gang and the body of yet another security guard. Meanwhile, Rina leafs through books of mug shots, the translator makes a pest of himself at the station house and Kaffey family embezzlements come to light. There will be further attempts on the remaining Kaffeys—and on Peter, Rina and the translator—before the City of Angels settles down once more.

Kellerman (The Garden of Eden, 2006, etc.), who seems as fond of plot coincidences as she is of Judaica, has settled into a comfortable storytelling groove that's likely to please her legion of fans without winning her many new ones.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2009
Plenty of suspects but only shaky leads. Thats the problem Lieutenant Peter Decker faces in the brutal slaying of a wealthy real-estate developer and his wife. The only survivor of the crime, one of the couples sons, provides the first clue: he thinks the killers spoke Spanish. Further investigation points to an inside job. The best clue, however, comes from a blind court translator, who overhears two men discussing the crime during an unrelated trial. Eager to learn more about the men, the translator waylays a jurist, who happens to be Deckers wife, Rina Lazarus, to serve as his eyes, thereby pulling her into her husbands case and putting her life at risk. Kellerman nicely balances Deckers personal lifehis Jewish orthodoxy and his relationship with his wife and moody teenage daughterwith his professional responsibilities as an LAPD homicide detective. Joined once again by his trusted sounding boards, detectives Oliver and Dunn, Decker is gradually able to weed through the suspects and put his many questions to rest. Another entertaining entry in the long-running series; sure to please Decker-Lazarus fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)