The Forgotten (Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Series #13)

by Faye Kellerman Narrated by Mitchell Greenberg

Overview

Rina Lazarus and her husband, LAPD Homicide Lieutenant Peter Decker, are shocked by an outrage that cuts close to the spiritual heart of their family. Rina's small storefront synagogue has been desecrated with anti-Semitic graffiti and grisly Nazi death camp photographs. The alleged perpetrator is seventeen-year-old Ernesto Golding, a ""rich kid"" obsessed with haunting suspicions about the origins of his Polish paternal grandfather. Then Ernesto is found brutally murdered, along with his therapist, Dr. Mervin Baldwin, at an exclusive nature camp that caters moneyed, troubled children. For Decker and his wife, unraveling the truth behind Ernesto's violent death becomes more terrifying with each sinister twist. For lethal secrets with roots in the horrors of a past genteration are coming to the surface, propelling Peter and Rina into a ghastly world of ruthless parents and damaged youth -- and toward a dark evil and its ultimate retribution.

Editorial Reviews

bn.com

When you're the wife of a cop, all it takes is a single phone call from the police to send your heart reeling. But after learning that her husband and children are safe, Rina Lazarus's fright turns to fury. Someone has viciously vandalized the storefront temple where Rina and her family worship. And though years of living with religious intolerance should have steeled her, Rina quickly summons her husband, Detective Lieutenant Peter Decker, to find and arrest the culprit.

Not surprisingly, it's just a boy who claims responsibility for the crime. But something about the confession of Ernesto Golding, the 17-year-old scion of wealthy parents, and the easy sentencing of community service and counseling that he receives, leaves Decker troubled. How could a single young man wreak such total destruction on his own? And if he wasn't alone, then who acted with him or encouraged him to commit such a senseless crime?

It isn't long before Decker has more to worry about than another troubled teen spiraling out of control. Only weeks after entering counseling, Ernesto and his therapists are brutally murdered. And their deaths are only the beginning.

Now what seemed like and open-and-shut case has turned far deadlier that anyone could have imagined. And as the body count mounts, Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus find themselves thrust into the world of the nouveau riche, where hate and greed lie just beneath the surface of a glittering facade, twisted minds admire winning above all else, and a child's academic success is the ultimate status symbol.

Because in a world as perverted as this, the desire to be the best has driven otherwise good parents to do very bad things, leaving them and their families at the mercy of a killer who has his own reasons for needing to succeed. Few can resist the lure of his attractively disguised promise. None can hide from his psychopathic reach. And this time, not even Decker's own stepson will emerge unscarred from the search for a killer.

The latest installment of Kellerman's Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series finds Decker on the trail of a teenager who has been accused of vandalizing a Los Angeles synagogue with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans. But as Decker quickly comes to realize, catching the person responsible for this crime is only the first step to uncovering a larger conspiracy. Kellerman's affecting novel has a fast-moving plot and engaging characters; the most charming of these is Rina Lazarus's rebellious son, Jacob, whose presence adds energy to the story. Kellerman's latest, thoroughly enjoyable book is a great addition to the series.
—Jennifer Braunschweiger

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. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Kellerman's latest addition to her popular series is another gripping police procedural and engaging family drama. When the synagogue his family attends is viciously defaced, L.A. homicide detective Peter Decker becomes personally involved. With Peter's help, Ernesto Golding, a 17-year-old acquaintance of Peter's stepson, Jacob, confesses. Recently coming to believe that his grandfather, always a somewhat secretive man, was a Nazi who merely posed as a Jew to escape Europe, Ernesto seemed to be expressing his anger and confusion through vandalism. When Ernesto is found murdered along with his therapist at an exclusive camp catering to the disturbed children of the very wealthy, Peter's personal interest becomes professional. While Simon and Schuster's production is well abridged and features an outstanding narration by Dennis Boutsikaris, the unabridged edition read by Barrett Whitener contains all the details series fans will crave. Either version would be a solid addition to mystery collections; choosing between them will depend on budget and patron preference. Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Back again-and in top form-are LAPD Homicide Lieutenant Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus (Jupiter's Bones, etc.) for their 13th praiseworthy attempt to cope with a world they never made. This time the trouble starts when a vandal defaces Rina's storefront synagogue with spray-painted swastikas and other testaments to hate-mongering. Rina is shattered, Peter enraged. Though it doesn't take long to catch the culprit, at first glance Ernesto Golding seems not to fit the profile. He's bright, a good student, even charming. He's also half-Jewish. But, as events prove, Ernesto is an extremely disturbed young man, mixed up in a variety of extracurricular activities, all of them either sexually or socially destructive. To stay out of jail, Ernesto agrees to seek help from the doctors Baldwin, a husband and wife team of therapists. This shady pair prescribes survivalist training for Ernesto, at a camp run oh-so-profitably by the Baldwins themselves. It turns out to be extremely bad medicine, however, for the therapists as well as Ernesto. All three are gruesomely murdered. A dangerously deranged person, Decker decides, is acting out some sort of complex fantasy, but who, and what sort? "Every time we get a suspect," he laments, "he winds up dead." Meanwhile, the Decker household continues its unflagging soap-opera run. Orthodox Jew Rina and secular Jew Decker remain the at-odds couple on most available domestic fronts, while agreeing always that they love each other irrevocably. Warm, funny, fast-moving, even decently written: Kellerman at her unassuming best.

FEB/MAR 02 - AudioFile

When the synagogue of LAPD Lt. Peter Decker and wife Rina Lazarus is vandalized, Decker’s investigation and Lazarus’s research uncover white supremacists, family secrets, murder, and therapists who exploit the alienated children of the wealthy. Dennis Boutsikaris fails to do justice to Kellerman’s newest Decker/Lazarus book. He repeatedly mispronounces Hebrew and Yiddish works intrinsic to the Jewish setting. His narrative voice is adequate, but his characterizations are uneven at best. His accents strain credulity. Nevertheless, the story is absorbing and suspenseful, with a full cast of intriguing characters and a dramatic resolution. The culture of disaffected teens in the affluent neighborhoods of Los Angeles provides a perfect setting. Decker’s complex relationship with his troubled stepson is woven seamlessly into the plot with moving results. A good read deserves a better reader. E.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173805638
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/21/2012
Series:	Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Series , #13
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt from Chapter One

The call was from the police. Not from Rina's lieutenant husband, but from the police police. She listened as the man spoke, and when she heard that it had nothing to do with Peter or the children, she felt a "Thank you, God" wave of instant relief. After discovering the reason behind the contact, Rina wasn't as shocked as she should have been.

The Jewish population of L.A.'s West Valley had been rocked by hate crimes in the past, culminating in that hideous ordeal a couple of years ago when a subspecies of human life had gotten off the public bus and had shot up the Jewish Community Center. The center had been and still was a refuge for all people, offering everything from toddler day camps to dance movements to exercise classes for the elderly. Miraculously, no one had been killed -- there. But the monster -- who had later in the day committed the atrocious act of murder -- had injured several children and had left the entire area with numbing fears that maybe it could happen again. Since then, many of the L.A. Jews took special precautions to safeguard their people and their institutions. Extra locks were put on the doors of the centers and synagogues. Rina's shul, a small rented storefront, had even gone so far as to padlock the Aron Kodesh -- the Holy Ark that housed the sacred Torah scrolls.

The police had phoned Rina because her number was the one left on the shul's answering machine -- for emergencies only. She was the synagogue's unofficial caretaker -- the buck-stops-here person who called the contractors when a pipe burst or when the roof leaked. Because it was a new congregation, its members could only afford a part-time rabbi. The congregants often pitched in by delivering a Shabbos sermon or sponsoring an after-prayer kiddush. People were always more social when food was served. The tiny house of worship had lots of mettle, and that made the dreadful news even harder to digest.

Driving to the destination, Rina was a mass of anxiety and apprehension. Nine in the morning and her stomach was knotted and burning. The police hadn't described the damage, other than use the word vandalize over and over. From what she could gather, it sounded more like cosmetic mischief than actual constructional harm, but maybe that was wishful thinking.

She passed homes, stores, and strip malls, barely glancing at the scenery. She straightened the black tam perched atop her head, tucking in a few dangling locks of ebony hair. Even under ordinary circumstances, she rarely spent time in front of the mirror. This morning, she had rushed out as soon as she hung up the phone, wearing the most basic of clothing -- a black skirt, a white long-sleeved shirt, slip-on shoes, a head covering. At least her blue eyes were clear. There had been no time for her makeup; the cops were going to see the uncensored Rina Decker. The red traffic lights seemed overly long, because she was so antsy to get there.

The shul meant so much to her. It had been the motivating factor behind selling Peter's old ranch and buying their new house. Because hers was a Sabbath-observant Jewish home, she had wanted a place of worship that was within walking distance -- real walking distance, not something two and a half miles away as Peter's ranch had been. It wasn't that she minded the walk to her previous shul, Yeshivat Ohavei Torah, and the boys certainly could make the jaunt, but Hannah, at the time, had been five. The new house was perfect for Hannah, a fifteen-minute walk, plus there were plenty of little children for her to play with. Not many older children, but that didn't matter, since her older sons were nearly grown. Shmueli had left for Israel, and Yonkie, though only in eleventh grade, would probably spend his senior year back east, finishing yeshiva high school while simultaneously attending college. Peter's daughter, Cindy, was now a veteran cop, having survived a wholly traumatic year. Occasionally, she'd eat Shabbat dinner with them, visiting her little sister -- a thrill since Cindy had grown up an only child. Rina was the mother of a genuine blended family, though sometimes it felt more like genuine chaos.

Her heartbeat quickened as she approached the storefront. The tiny house of worship was in a building that also rented space to a real estate office, a dry cleaners, a nail salon, and a take-out Thai café. Upstairs were a travel agency and an attorney who advertised on late-night cable with happy testimonials from former clients. Two black-and-white cruisers had parked askew, taking up most of the space in the minuscule lot, their light bars alternately blinking out red and blue beams. A small crowd had gathered in front of the synagogue, but through them, Rina could see hints of a freshly painted black swastika.

Her heart sank.

She inched her Volvo into the lot and parked adjacent to a cruiser. Before she even got out of the car, a uniform was waving her off. He was a thick block of a man in his thirties. Rina didn't recognize him, but that didn't mean anything because she didn't know most of the uniformed officers in the Devonshire station. Peter had transferred there as a detective, not a patrol cop.

The officer was saying, "You can't park here, ma'am."

Rina rolled down the window. "The police called me down. I have the keys to the synagogue."

The officer waited; she waited.

Rina said, "I'm Rina Decker, Lieutenant Decker's wife..."

Instant recognition. The uniformed officer nodded by way of an apology, then muttered, "Kids!"

"Then you know who did it?" Rina got out of the car.

The officer's cheeks took on color. "No, not yet. But..."

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