Serpent's Tooth

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 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 show more 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

After a horrific mass murder at a fashionable restaurant, Lieutenant Peter Decker is placed in charge of the follow up investigation. He slowly uncovers layer after layer of corruption involving drugs, high school students, tennis players and leading them all, a beautiful woman who seems to have a connection to everyone involved in the massacre. Jeanine Garrison initially tries to seduce Decker but becomes vicious when he rejects her advances and falsely accuses him of sexual harassment. It's a very fast moving plot, easy to read and therefore almost “unputdownable”-I loved it!

One of the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novels, this is one of those procedurals that has so many characters, and so many twists and turns, that it's most easily read in long bursts. But, as ever, Kellerman's characters are so clear that the book's inertia carries it along.

I'm not sure I enjoyed this one as much as others in the series--it felt like there were a few too many layers, to the point where so much was going on that some of the power of any one subplot almost had to be buried. Having been away from the series for a while, it was also hard at first to drop back into the old relationships and characters here, so that I imagine I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been reading the books more recently.

Still, it was an enjoyable show more escape and an easy read, with more than enough twists and seeming dead-ends to keep it interesting.

I'd recommend the series, though I'd probably recommend starting with the earlier books. show less

An apparently disgruntled ex-employee goes on a killing spree in a restaurant, but after closer inspection, it seems there may have been more than one gunman, one with a very different agenda from the other. Another good installment in the series. This one has the regular twists and mixes in a little sexual politics to keep the interest high. Recommended if you already like the series and its characters - if not, you may find the somewhat condescending tone towards women a little off-putting.

Cindy Decker, Lt. Peter Decker's older daughter, gets to be the main female character in this offering, rather than Rina. There were plenty of characters to dislike, enough so that the last page was particularly satisfying.

Still, Cindy isn't as interesting as her stepmother. I had over 120 pages to go when I set this book down to reread the Meg Langslow mystery series by Donna Andrews. Still, I was going to return Serpent's Tooth with some library books on CD and was stuck waiting for my car long enough to finish it.

Yes, I'm pleased that the last chapters were worth reading after all.

Just your typical contemporary detective novel. This series follows the same detective through a different case each book while also watching his family and personal life and problems develop. In this one somebody randomly starts shooting in an upscale restaurant and kills a bunch of people.

I started reading this series when I worked in a used book store because the covers are really bright neon colors that made them stand out among thousands of books. They’re not bad, they’re not great, just decent mindless “fluff” for when you need a break from serious reading. I’ve enjoyed all of the books by Kellerman that I’ve read so far, but I’m not going to continue with the series because there’s just too many other better show more books out there. Having said that, she did have me sucked in by the end of the book, and I didn’t want to put it down at the end of my breaks. show less

Brothers and sisters, moms and dads; evil lurks in the hearts of many. A good mystery with few plot surprises. Faye Kellerman is a much better writer than her husband Jonathan, and this is mostly a good series. Series novels can stand alone, and this one does. If you feel like an engaging but not taxing mystery, this is a good read.