OCTOBER 2018 - AudioFile
Narrator Mitchell Greenberg’s mellow delivery of the latest exploits of Detective Peter Decker and his insightful Orthodox Jewish spouse, Rina Lazarus, is nicely matched to the series’ new setting in a college town in upstate New York. It’s quite a change of pace from L.A. Opening with Decker answering the complaints of elderly neighbors with smashed mailboxes, Greenberg smoothly transitions from cop talk to senior carping to interviews with teen punks, whom he terms “victims of underdeveloped frontal lobes.” The vandalism exposes murder, of course, and segues into a cold case involving robbery and homicide, further violence, and official entanglements with neighboring cop shops. Tension simmers but does not boil over, even in the final hostage scenario. Greenberg’s perfectly paced narration and sharp characterizations keep the listener engaged. D.P.D. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
06/18/2018
The bludgeoning murder of Brady Neil, a 26-year-old electronics store employee, drives bestseller Kellerman’s formulaic 25th novel featuring Peter Decker, a police detective in Greenbury, N.Y., who has spent most of his career in L.A., and his wife, Rina Lazarus (after 2017’s Bone Box). Since the victim lived in the neighboring town of Hamilton, Decker needs to cooperate with the Hamilton police chief, which means his reluctantly accepting the assignment of the chief’s spoiled daughter, Lennie Baccus, to the case. A former Philadelphia PD officer, Lennie used to work for Decker’s detective sergeant daughter in that city—a contrivance that serves no particular purpose. When Decker learns that Neil’s father was doing time for a double homicide, he probes whether the bludgeoning was somehow connected with those murders. Some banter between Decker and Lazarus in praise of Kellerman’s husband and fellow author, Jonathan, and his creation, psychologist Alex Delaware, may strike some readers as too cutesy. Still, series fans will enjoy spending time in the company of old friends. (Aug.)
OCTOBER 2018 - AudioFile
Narrator Mitchell Greenberg’s mellow delivery of the latest exploits of Detective Peter Decker and his insightful Orthodox Jewish spouse, Rina Lazarus, is nicely matched to the series’ new setting in a college town in upstate New York. It’s quite a change of pace from L.A. Opening with Decker answering the complaints of elderly neighbors with smashed mailboxes, Greenberg smoothly transitions from cop talk to senior carping to interviews with teen punks, whom he terms “victims of underdeveloped frontal lobes.” The vandalism exposes murder, of course, and segues into a cold case involving robbery and homicide, further violence, and official entanglements with neighboring cop shops. Tension simmers but does not boil over, even in the final hostage scenario. Greenberg’s perfectly paced narration and sharp characterizations keep the listener engaged. D.P.D. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
In a class with the most literate, facile, and engaging writers in the business.
— "Associated Press, praise for the author"
Kellerman succeeds brilliantly in making the search for understanding as compelling as the search for the murderer.
— "Publishers Weekly, praise for the author"
Series fans will enjoy spending time in the company of old friends.
— "Publishers Weekly"
Kirkus Reviews
2018-06-18
An unwelcome discovery on the grounds of an empty house brings Detective Peter Decker, who retired from the LAPD, to the allegedly quiet town of Greenbury, New York, up against a criminal plot that stretches back 20 years.The thrill-seeking kids who smashed seven mailboxes on Canterbury Lane admit under questioning that they found the body of Brady Neil in the yard of an absent vacationer before Decker did but insist they didn't kill him even though he also seems to have been attacked with a baseball bat. Since Decker's not about to credit the punks with either the animus or the enterprise to have clubbed Brady to death, he has to look elsewhere. And there are so many places to look that Decker's soon ruefully observing, "Sometimes crimes have too few pieces to solve. I have too many." Brady's father, Brandon Gratz, has been in prison for 20 years for robbing and killing jewelers Lydia and Glen Levine. New evidence suggests that Brandon, though clearly a lowlife, may have been innocent and that at least some of the cops in neighboring Hamilton may have known it. As he digs deeper for evidence, Decker has to walk a narrow line between antagonizing the current Hamilton police chief, Victor Baccus, whose department has access to information Decker needs, and serving as his lackey by putting his daughter, Officer Lenora Baccus, on the case. Fortunately, Lennie turns out to be an excellent detective. Unfortunately, as soon as she starts to get results, her father abruptly pulls her off. Decker continues working anyway. So does Lennie, setting up a charged relationship that's the headline story here.As usual, Kellerman (Killing Season, 2017, etc.) is more interested in the big scenes than in the cartilage that binds them together. The result is a methodical procedural whose method is to look everywhere, ask everything, and deal with the inevitable disappointment when the pieces just refuse to come together.
