Faye Kellerman

That is an unusual book for the series. Marge is on vacation (so Peter ends up working with another cop (unintentionally first); Rina is mostly missing, Cindy is away in college (and making her father anxious because of a rapist on campus), the boys do not even make an appearance and Hannah Rose shows up almost as a background.

But we get to meet Terry McLaughlin - almost half of the book is from her POV - a good student that does not get much love at home. And then she meets Chris - a show more fellow student, a bit older than her, with a music career that takes him away - which causes him to fall behind at school. Thus Terry finds herself tutoring him - and falling in love with him. The only way she knows how - completely and without reservations.

But unfortunately this is not a happy story. Chris has a dark past and even darker present - between the mafia, murders and past connections, he is as far away as possible from Terry. When a girl is found dead, he is the main suspect - and the dark secrets start unraveling. Decker gets pulled into the case and starts finding connections to older cases - until he is pulled off it and the case is closed with a decision that just does not sit well. It takes him a while to decide that it really cannot sit and he is off investigating again - against orders and expectations. He finds the truth but you get to wonder, is it enough? And what would really be justice in this case.

In a way it is the story of a lost innocence - both Chris's and Terry's; about consequences and choices. It is also a lot more explicit in its sex scenes than I ever remember Kellerman being. Going to jail for the one you love is an old trope but it is done here in a way that breaks your heart. Love does not seem to be enough and yet that is all that Terry and Chris have - even with the murder in the middle of the story.

The ending is almost perfect - anything else would not have really worked - the darkness of the story matches the darkness in everyone's heart. At the end of the day, it is a love story - the love story of two broken kids that never had any choice in anything that happened to them. show less

Disclaimer: I am a huge fan of most of Faye Kellerman's work, so I'm surprised at this unfortunate review, but you seem to want an honest opinion, so. I sent this opinion to the publisher in hopes that significant changes occur before actual publication.

This book is a slog -- I read it in digital format, so it's hard to tell how long it is, but boy could it use some editing. Slow paced, which I initially thought was for the purpose of Kellerman's usually fantastic character development, but show more the characters in this book are just flat.

Is it because they are teens? Is it because so much of the development is through dialogue? Not sure. However, the dialogue is also... lacking -- there are some clever moments, but then there are the painful attempts to add some teen lingo in -- and yes, I am using that word in the most awkward way possible so that you can get an idea of how dreadful the add-ins are. Killer dope! Ugh. I read YA lit and work with teens all the time. This dialogue is painful. The sex is even more so -- between the implied anal from our "smoking hot" cheerleader main character to the boy's fistfight that just got real because "she was cherry" and one boy had her first, this book has tipped into offensive and revolting, and I'm not talking about the serial killer. It's entirely possible that this is a realistic depiction of boys objectifying girls in our current culture. My problem with it is that these are the good guys, and that is appalling.

Most of this book is set in the senior year of the main characters and if the point is to make the audience feel trapped in a pointless, drama filled exercise, then this book is a total success. If you are looking for the next fast-paced, hard to put down thriller, then I can't recommend it.

Finally, having read through to the end, what is up with the extended fantasy of future romance between our overprotective main character and his new life-obsession? She's a young teen with a crush on a guy and a terrible attack in her life. Don't further disenfranchise her personality by making a prediction that her future holds neither surprises nor triumphs.

What a bummer.

Advanced reader's copy provided by edelweiss. show less

25 years ago Dr. Emil Euler Ganz disappeared. He used to be one of the best cosmologists in the world before his ideas got a bit crazy and by the time he disappeared, he was almost considered a washout and a hack. He resurfaced 10 years later, with no explanation of where he had been. But he never got back to science, instead he called himself Father Jupiter and started a cult.

The story opens when his daughter gets a call Ganz/Jupiter is dead in the cult's compound and the cult does not show more plan to call the police - and whoever called Europa Ganz thinks that she should. So she calls and Peter is assigned to the case - after all Emil Ganz is a celebrity, in both of his lives.

It looks like a suicide and everyone seems to like the idea. But then things get out of hand - a woman disappears from the compound, then a child is discovered to be missing and while investigating the missing people, Marge and Oliver stumble upon yet another dead body. And then things get really complicated when one of the remaining leaders of the cult start shooting at the police and closes the compound down, with all 200+ members inside, including children, and a lot of firepower. Everyone's nightmares are playing in real life again - the comparisons with Waco are writing themselves and Kellerman is not shying from them.

Meanwhile, back in Peter and Rina's household, things are a bit tense - the shadows of 8 years ago, the days when the two of them met and fell in love, catch up with the family - while we know what happened with Rina, the boys did not escape unscathed either - and it was about time for them to act out enough to finally pull that story back in the light.

Peter Decker is not a perfect man - he is short tempered and he does make mistakes. That's part of his charm. His handling of both the case of the cult and of the repercussions of what his sons reveal show that his heart is in what he does - even when he is unsure of what he can do or when he realizes the mistakes he had done. I missed Rina a bit in this book - she is there in the house, keeping everything going (including the extremely spoiled Hannah, now 5 years old) but she is not part of the crime investigation (and she is kept in the dark about the family drama).

It is a dark novel (and people can be idiots). If you are claustrophobic, some parts of the novel may be a bit of a problem. The "crazy cult leader" gets a bit of a spin here although it falls back to where it expect it to fall which is to be expected but still. A lot of people die and there are heart breaking moments but there are also survivors. By the end of the novel, Peter manages to solve even the problem he was never asked to - he figures out where Ganz had been for the 10 years he was missing.

We even get to see Alex Delaware from the other Kellerman series - well, hear about him anyway. He is not called by name but if you are reading both series, you will recognize his professional description when you read it.

It is not my favorite novel from the series but it is a solid novel albeit a bit cliched. I do wonder how much of the cliches are there because of all the true crime series we had been bombarded with in the last decade - this novel is from 1999 after all. show less

On a cruise Melissa bonds with an older man, Travis, who turns out to be a famous celebrity in hiding from a once successful life. But by degrees we become aware that his enormous success came at the price of bonding with demonic forces. Although he later rejected these dark powers in favor of a return to sanity and anonymity, such eternal entities simply are not going to forget him. Librarian Melissa, who as a youngster worshipped the former rock god and movie star Travis in his first show more incarnation as Hildebrand, comes to accept the reborn Travis as he is, and she becomes his ticket back to full life and normality. While he hides the truth from her as long as he can, he truly loves her and believes he’s doing best by keeping her in the dark about his past.

The novel slowly builds moods of romance and horror, beginning as a love story with a just a tiny drop of evil in the background. But as the characters continue to develop though excellent dialog and effortlessly-sketched psychic interaction, the percentage of romance to horror starts uneasily… shifting … and finally we’re confronted by a flat-out horror novel, its unconventional story arc challenging our expectations of an easy, plot-driven vanquishing of raw evil.

Flashbacks are necessary and clearly labeled as such. The novel captures the many moods of Melissa adjusting to her future with Travis as she moves from her urban life to a horse farm in Nebraska, juxtaposed with the chronicle of Travis’ long journey though darkness and his struggle back towards the light. As troubling new hints of something seriously amiss begin to mount, Melissa and Travis strive for unity and love even as they make mistakes … sometimes serious mistakes.

Serpent’s Tooth accelerates to a shocking conclusion and one can only hope there’s a continuation of this story, some new life for Melissa and Travis. The reader must be curious as to how the couple might manage to go on. But then again, you just can’t trust those junior varsity demons who have so much at stake here! show less