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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Award-Winning Debut Mystery, 27 Aug 2005
"The Ritual Bath," Faye Kellerman's debut novel introducing the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series won the 1987 Mcavity Award for Best First Mystery.Detective Peter Decker is called to investigate a vicious rape in a remote Orthodox Jewish Community in the California hills outside of Los Angeles. One of the women was brutally attacked as she walked home from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed. Rina Lazarus, the lovely young widow who discovered the victim, acts as an intermediary between Decker and the yeshiva, (a Jewish religious seminary), students and their families who are suspicious of outsiders. Decker is also working on a case involving a brutal serial rapist with a foot fetish, who operates in an area near the yeshiva. It is a possibility that this psychopath, called the Foothill rapist, is the attacker. Or the perpetrator(s) could be a gang of teen thugs who have been responsible for anti-Semitic vandalism and violence in the past. And then there are suspects who are members of the religious community itself. From the first, it is clear that further assaults of a similar nature are more than likely to occur. The next incident, on the yeshiva grounds, is a horrific murder. As evidence accumulates, it appears that Rina is the psychopath's primary target. Rina is a beautiful woman both outside and in. The mother of two young sons, she lost her husband, a brilliant seminary scholar, at a very young age. She is now in her late twenties and maintains the mikvah, as well as teaches mathematics, to support herself and her boys. She has not had much contact with men since her husband's untimely death, and although she and Decker are very much drawn to each other from the first, she refuses to involve herself with a man who is not an Orthodox Jew. Rina had a secular upbringing and chose to become an observant Jewess when she married. The author deftly handles the workings of various intense personal relationships and crime solving with apparent ease. As with the other Kellerman books I read, her characters are her strength. They are truly three-dimensional and their dialogue is extremely realistic. I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery, the humanity of the characters, and details of the Orthodox Jewish customs and lifestyle. Her mysteries are solid. No loose threads are left behind. I plan to read more of this excellent author's work and highly recommend it to others.
JANA
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by Faye Kellerman
by Faye Kellerman
by Faye Kellerman
by Faye Kellerman
by Faye Kellerman
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