Stone Kiss

Starred review from July 1, 2002
Raw. Brutal. Ugly. And, of course, riveting. L.A. homicide detective Peter Decker, an orthodox Jew, answers a call for help from his half-brother, Jonathan, in this 14th tale (after 2001's The Forgotten) from bestseller Kellerman. Ephraim Lieber, Jonathan's brother-in-law, has been found murdered in a seedy Manhattan hotel. Ephraim's 15-year-old niece, Shaynda, who was supposed to be with him, is missing. Reluctantly, Peter agrees to fly to New York to assess the situation, advise the family and perhaps consult with the police investigating the crime. Wife Rina and daughter Hannah accompany him to make the trip something of a vacation as well. The bare questions of the case are difficult and delicate enough (had Ephraim, a recovering drug addict, backslid? was his relationship with Shaynda abusive? what part did other family relationships play?). Peter is quickly caught up in a desperate attempt to find and save the girl while battling an intransigent family, unfamiliar territory and reckless killers. Worse, his best ally in this impossible situation is Chris Donatti, first encountered in Justice
(1995), a psychotic, mob-connected killer and maker of pornographic films. Whether Kellerman is depicting the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community or a pornographer's studio, she is utterly convincing. Amid the wreckage of lives taken or thrown away, Kellerman's heroes find glimmers of hope and enough moral ambiguity to make even her most evil villain look less than totally black. (One-day laydown July 30)Forecast:A five-city author tour, TV advertising in L.A. and New York, national print advertising and more should propel this title into bestseller territory.

April 15, 2002
Rina Lazarus and LAPD lieutenant Peter Decker are back, and have they got a problem: the brother-in-law of Decker's half-brother, Rabbi Jonathan Levin, has been found dead in a real dump of a hotel, and the man's young niece is missing.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2002
If Kellerman faltered slightly in her last Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus thriller, " The Forgotten "[BKL Jl 01], she more than makes up for it in this one, even though the calm, inquisitive Rina is mostly absent from the action. Responding to his half-brother Jonathan's plea for help in solving the murder of Jonathan's brother-in-law and the disappearance of his niece, LAPD detective Drecker finds himself in the middle of a cultural disconnect: on one side is the New York Orthodox Jewish community where the victims' family lives; on the other is Manhattan mobster and porn photographer Chris Donatti, whom Decker once put behind bars, then freed. Decker knows Donatti may hold the key to the crime, but he also knows the vengeful young man isn't going to give it up easily. The amoral Chris steals the show here; a great foil for the righteous Decker, he's viscous yet vulnerable, calculating, vengeful, and selfish, but with a skewed code of ethics that makes him pitiable, almost sympathetic. There's some steamy sex, and Kellerman ratchets up the action as Decker and Donatti alternately try to outsmart one another and punch each other out. High-voltage stuff about family ties and righting old wrongs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)