Stone Kiss - Faye Kellerman

A cracking new tale featuring the orthodox Jewish LA Police Lieutenant Pete Decker who this time journeys to New York after a Hassidic Jew and former drug addict was found murdered and a 15-year-old girl is missing. Decker finds himself in a strange city and struggling to free himself out of a maze of deceit and danger.

This, Faye Kellerman's 13th crime novel featuring Lieutenant Peter Decker and his wife Rina, will like its predecessors have her many fans reading avidly until the small hours. Decker and Rina are looking forward to a peaceful vacation when a frantic phone call from Decker's half-brother, Rabbi Jonathan Levine, throws the family into turmoil. The naked body of Jonathan's brother-in-law, Ephraim Lieber, a Hassidic Jew and recovering drug addict, has been found in a sleazy Manhattan hotel room. To complicate matters further, Shaynda, the dead man's 15-year-old niece, has vanished. Unable to ignore Jonathan's pleas for help, Decker soon finds himself pounding the streets of New York in a desperate attempt to untangle the mystery. The police are grudging with their co-operation; the family's lawyer is antagonistic and wants him out of New York, and when the missing girl's parents tell him to get off the case and go back to LA, Decker is enraged. What began as a family favour quickly becomes a quest - the more barriers that are thrown up in his way, the more Decker becomes obsessed with the case, following a trail of lies and deception from New York to New Jersey, unearthing corruption and lies at every turn. Decker is out on his own, his only lifeline a depraved psychopath who rapes and kills as a matter of necessity. But time is running out, and he needs help wherever he can find it. Powerful and utterly gripping, Stone Kiss lays bare the emotional ravages caused by religious and family conflicts. Desire for the truth is overpowered by the abiding need to keep the family together - the whole edifice may come toppling down if every strand of deceit is unravelled. This is an enthralling crime novel, but at a deeper level it forces us all to consider what we would do if faced with such dreadful choices. Solving the crime has far-reaching consequences; life for the Deckers will never be the same again. (Kirkus UK)