The Ritual Bath

This is the first book in yet another mystery series, starring LAPD Detective Peter Decker, and his romantic interest, Orthodox Jewish widow Rina Lazarus. I absolutely loved this book. Peter and Rina are both well developed, as is the description of life in a yeshiva. The plot (involving rape and murder in a place where Rina and other women feel most safe) is disturbing, but the chemistry between Peter and Rina is light and natural in the most dark and unnatural of circumstances. Highly recommended, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. Four and a half stars.

In the first book in the Decker/Lazarus-series, a woman is raped on her way home from the mikveh and Detective Peter Decker teams up with the witness, Rina Lazarus, to find the assailant. As far as the mystery-part is concerned, this is business-as-usual; the stakes are high and the characters interesting. Where this story really stands out, though, is in the locale - it takes place on the grounds of a Yeshiva and the main characters are Orthodox Jews, which is a world that is probably unfamiliar to most readers. Kellerman does a great job explaining the various religious and cultural concepts, but some of the lines (in transliterated Yiddish and Hebrew) are left untranslated so that we can emphasize with the bemused Detective. All in show more all, a very decent beginning of a potentially very decent series. show less

The ritual bath, the mikvah, is a necessity to the orthodox women of the yeshiva. A place of spirituality and meaning and, unfortunately, vulnerability. Detective Peter Decker is called in to investigate a rape at the mikvah but the violence doesn't stop there. While Decker finds the community's rules a challenge to work within, he's fairly certain an attractive, young widow is at the heart of the case. And with every day that passes she's getting closer to his heart as well.

I was surprised at how fast I blazed through this one. Even with all the Hebrew/Yiddish in it, it's very readable. It was predictable in the way that most mysteries tend to follow patterns and pacing. I was on the fence about the widow, Rina Lazarus. She was fragile show more and strong, hot and cold, and I didn't like that. What I really enjoyed was the characterization of Peter Decker. Kellerman dropped enough breadcrumbs to make me curious about him. I think I'll have to visit the second book in the series... show less

Dieses Buch habe ich bereits vor vielen Jahren zum ersten Mal gelesen, die Reihe aber dann irgendwie aus den Augen verloren. Jetzt habe ich beschlossen, der Reihe erneut eine Chance zu geben und mit einem Reread dieses ersten Bandes anzufangen. Diesmal habe aber zum englischen Original gegriffen. Dabei ist mir wieder einmal die Tendenz aufgefallen, Krimis mit biblisch oder sinnspruchartig klingenden Titeln zu versehen (so wird aus The Ritual Bath Denn rein soll deine Seele sein).

Die Krimihandlung selbst war logisch aufgebaut, nachvollziehbar, aber nicht sonderlich überraschend oder ungewöhnlich. Was das Buch für mich damals eigentlich interessant gemacht hat, sind die nachvollziehbaren Beschreibungen des Lebens in einer nach außen show more abgeschotteten Religionsgemeinschaft und die Probleme, die die religiösen Differenzen für die Ermittlung, aber auch für die aufkeimende Zuneigung zwischen Peter Decker und Rina Lazarus darstellt. Die Figuren sind interessant genug dargestellt, damit ich mehr über sie erfahren will. Band 2 befindet sich bereits auf meinem eReader. show less

THE RITUAL BATH by Faye Kellerman
I learned a lot about Orthodox Judaism from this exciting murder mystery. When a rape takes place outside a Mikvah in an isolated Orthodox community, Rina, who takes care of the Mikvah, meets Detective Peter Decker. An unlikely friendship begins and intensifies with a murder.
Good characterizations, interesting setting, and an intriguing plot that moves at just the right pace make this a great mystery. It is the first book in a series but can be read as a stand-alone.
4.5 of 5 stars

The Ritual Bath is usually categorized as a mystery novel (it even won a prestigious award in this field, the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel in 1987), but is rather a contemporary romance novel in a whodunit environment. (And I am telling so without ever reading a so called main stream 'romance' work of any kind...)

On her way home from a ritual bathhouse ('mikvah') a young woman is brutally raped in a small, strict Orthodox Jew community, near Los Angeles. One of her friends, recently widowed Rina Lazarus, calls the police and she is also the only one among the religious villagers who seems to be willing to cooperate with the authorities. No wonder that the dashing, 6+ foot, freshly divorced policeman, who is in charge of show more the case, feels closer and closer to Rina. With some twisting and turning the story unstoppably and pretty calculably rushes towards its happy ending (that includes solving the rape plus murder case on the sidelines as well).

One of the the good things of the novel is its environment of course: it is trying to destroy a common prejudice that the followers of any orthodox religion must be weirdos but at least totally self-centered people rejecting other religions and outsiders. The community of Jewtown (as it is called in the story) is pretty confident but friendly and relatively open; boys are playing with G.I Joe action figures, their parents buy stuff in Target, a lot of them subscribe to 'secular' magazines and newspapers, they watch regular TV channels, drink Coke, and so on. True enough, if they go to a ball game, they are strictly banned to eat a good ol' hot dog (instead, they carry their kosher snacks), observe Sabbath very seriously (no electricity use, no work), follow a precisely described dress code anywhere they go, and of course keep the regulations of the ritual bath.

The title ('The Ritual Bath') can have several meanings, among them some symbolic as well: first of all of course the actual central element of the story, but we can take it as a symbol for Peter Decker on different levels: it is this case that puts him out of his past's misery (the residues of a divorce), but also, it is this case that connects him with his real spiritual self as well. The events also help Rina to understand what she wants from the rest of her life - as so far she has beeb burdened with her past too.

Kellerman writes good dialogs most of the time (for instance there is some mannerism in the beginning when Marge - one of the police officers - talks, etc), approaches her topic quite tactfully and empathetically and develops the Peter-Rina relationship very nicely and realistically (OK, 75% realistically...) With this being said, the novel is hardly more than a plain, although well-written romantic (romance?) story. The mystery part is forgettable but page-turningly (is there such a word?) enjoyable (I figured out the rape incident at about the 50th page or so, and it is not getting better later). For me the most annoying parts are when the text becomes an encyclopedia entry on the kollel life or on other orthodox Judaic cultural issue.

The Ritual Bath is fun to read, easy to read and easy to forget. Perfect beach book. show less

Really enjoyed this - far more than I originally thought. I'll look into the entire series by Kellerman. Very well written and nice balance of mystery vs. personal lives of the people involved.