The Ritual Bath
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3.9 • 11 Ratings
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- £1.99
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- £1.99
Publisher Description
The first book in the hugely popular Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series from New York Times bestselling author Faye Kellerman
A woman who thought she was safe…
Detective Peter Decker is used to working difficult cases. But even he is shocked by the call that comes in from the remote yeshiva community in the hills behind Los Angeles. Their sanctuary has been shattered – a woman has been viciously attacked after leaving the bathhouse.
A community shocked to its core…
The community is highly suspicious of outsiders – persuading people to talk will be difficult. But against the odds, Decker forms a connection with the young widow who discovered the victim, Rina Lazarus.
A case that gets harder at every turn…
Together, Rina and Decker work to expose the culprit. But then a shocking revelation comes to light. Will Decker uncover the truth? And even if he does, will it tear him and Rina apart?
Reviews
Praise for Faye Kellerman
‘Kellerman is an excellent writer' The Times
'Very exciting' Daily Mail
'Brutal but thoughtful and well plotted, fast moving and well told' Observer
'Sensational' Mirror
'Kellerman creates a claustrophobic atmosphere, against a background of seediness, violence and distrust' Sunday Telegraph
'Kellerman moves her gritty mean streets LA plot along with breakneck pace' Irish Independent
‘Hands down, the most refreshing mystery couple around’ People
About the author
Faye Kellerman is the author of thirty-one novels, including twenty-two New York Times bestselling mysteries that feature the husband-and-wife team of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. She has also penned two bestselling short novels with her husband, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman and teamed up with her daughter Aliza to co-write a young adult novel, Prism. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The first book in a long-running series, The Ritual Bath showcases Faye Kellerman’s knack for infusing a classic whodunit with complex moral questions. When a married woman from a small Orthodox Jewish community is sexually assaulted, Rina Lazarus, the young woman who reports the crime, and Peter Decker, the investigating Los Angeles police detective, develop a deeply personal connection that changes both their lives. Written in Kellerman’s incisive yet sensitive style, and rich with insight into religious observances, this is an evocative and thrilling examination of devotion, ritual and temptation. With the rigid atmosphere of the vulnerable community repeatedly punctured by moments of harsh violence, and the tension and intimacy between the main characters ratcheting up, Kellerman keeps our heart rates high until the very end.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Baptist big cop Peter Decker is reduced to jelly by tiny Jewish jewel Rina Lazarus, mistress of a ritual bathhouse in Los Angeles, on whose grounds a rape, which Decker is investigating, has just taken place. When she's not scrubbing out the mikvah, Rina, widowed mother of two sons, teaches math at the yeshiva, where several of those suspected of the rape and later of a particularly hideous murder either teach or study the Torah. Despite detective Decker's instant bedazzlement, however, Rina's orthodox charms and pious invocations to the deity are pretty subfusc; the entire cast is so jejune that the reader doesn't give a rap whodunit. Thus, the principle of the murder mystery genre is violated, the more seriously by the author's ambiguity as to whether she is writing a romance, a homily on the practices and virtues of observant Judaism or a detective novel.
