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STREET DREAMS
by Faye Kellerman
Headline, August 2003
410 pages
10.99 GBP
ISBN: 0747265593


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Faye Kellerman was first published in 1986 when her initial Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker novel, The Ritual Bath, was released. An orthodox Jewish woman, Kellerman made her protagonist, Rina Lazarus, a very religious Jewess. The author herself has children so is very familiar with the joys and difficulties of bringing them up, experiences which she passes on to Lazarus and her husband, Lieutenant Peter Decker. She proves the adage that if you want success as a writer, write about what you know! Faye Kellerman's bibliography includes The Ritual Bath ,Sacred and Profane, Milk and Honey , Day of Atonement False Prophet, Grievous Sin, Sanctuary, Justice , Prayers for the Dead Serpent's Tooth, Jupiter's Bones , Stalker, The Forgotten , Moon Music (dark fantasy) , Quality of Mercy, (historical) and Stone Kiss.

Faye Kellerman is, of course, the wife of another talented crime fiction writer, child psychologist Jonathan Kellerman. While the two write in a similar genre, the writing of each is very separate and distinct. Jonathan Kellerman's work lacks the religious overtones which, to my mind, make Faye Kellerman's work so intriguing.

While Faye Kellerman began her published work with Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker and their courtship, the heavy emphasis on religion of the early work has shifted and is now more matter of fact. So, too, has the emphasis on characters. The author has been, for some time, allowing the Decker children, both Rina's and Peter's, to play a larger part in the books. I had felt that perhaps Kellerman needed an infusion of new characters but recently she has made a relatively smooth transition by using Cynthia Decker as the protagonist. To Peter's disgust, his elder daughter has elected to join the LAPD. She has, in an earlier book, Stalker, suffered agonies as a police officer. She does not expect an easy, safe life in her work but is perhaps not quite prepared for all the vicissitudes - albeit perhaps not so violent as previously - that she experiences in Street Dreams. The street dreams of the title haunt her - flashbacks to violence she has previously endured in the course of her duties.

While Cindy is the main protagonist in this novel - the tale is told in the first person from her point of view, alternating with the third person when describing other scenes - Peter Decker plays an important part in both protecting his daughter and also in helping to make her an effective officer. Rina, too, has her own story as she seeks to solve the mystery of her grandmother's murder in Nazi ravaged München.

Cynthia Decker is called to a dumpster from which the cries of a newborn are issuing. Cindy rescues the babe from the bottom of the rubbish then follows her to the children's hospital where she encounters Ethiopian, sometime resident of Israel, Jew Yaakov. Fascinated by him, she begins dating him although, unfairly, not warning Peter and Rina of his colour before taking him to a family shabbat dinner.

Investigating the parentage of the rescued baby girl - later named Cinderella - Cindy uncovers a brutalising gang rape of a retarded girl as well as the possible murder of the girl's boyfriend. Along the way she discovers a systematic exploitation of retarded girls. There are, of course, obligatory scenes of violence - although I have read more gore spattered tales by this author - as well as interesting sidelights thrown onto discrimination of one kind or another, both sexual and racial.

For those readers who enjoyed the courting days of Rina and Peter, be warned that the courtship of Decker's daughter is very, very different. There are, of course, religious overtones but the settings are modern and far less inhibited than those of the earlier generation.

The plotting of the novel is involving as one has come to expect of this gifted author (although I reserve my right to say I did not enjoy Moon Music at all) and the bones of the main characters are adequately fleshed out. It is a great pleasure to note that Faye Kellerman is well and truly back on course in her writing career.

Note: This review is based on the Australian version which bears the same ISDN as the UK edition. It will be available in Oz on September 11, 2003

Reviewed by Denise Wels, August 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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