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A review by ncrabb
Day of Atonement by Faye Kellerman
4.0
As book four opens, Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus are finally married. Decker is fully and officially Jewish. He technically didn’t have to convert, since his biological mother was Jewish, but he had passed all the tests and attended all the study groups. But this is not the honeymoon he had hoped for. Instead of being somewhere exotic, Decker is in Brooklyn spending Rosh Hashanah with his new wife’s former in-laws, of all people. He’s hanging out with some orthodox Jews, and one of them turns out to be far more involved in his past than he wants to deal with.
When Noam, the son of one of Rina’s family members, goes missing, it’s up to Decker and Rina to figure out what happened to the kid. The young man wanted what so many adolescents want—a sense of self, a sense of freedom and autonomy. The best way he could get that, eh reasoned, was to hook up with an older guy from the neighborhood—a guy who seemed to understand him so well. He, too, had been part of an orthodox family at one time, and he understood the restraints Noam dealt with. He tapped into the kid’s psyche in ways no one else had. The problem is, he’s a psychopath who wants nothing more than to introduce Noam to his chaotic bloody murderous world. It’s up to Decker and Lazarus to find him and bring him home before the psychopath kills him. It’s a dizzying chase between New York, Los Angeles, and ultimately back to New York.
I was fascinated by the snapshot of how orthodox Jews live and celebrate their sacred holidays. You’ll learn much from this book without feeling like someone sought to teach you things. That’s a good kind of learning in which to engage.
When Noam, the son of one of Rina’s family members, goes missing, it’s up to Decker and Rina to figure out what happened to the kid. The young man wanted what so many adolescents want—a sense of self, a sense of freedom and autonomy. The best way he could get that, eh reasoned, was to hook up with an older guy from the neighborhood—a guy who seemed to understand him so well. He, too, had been part of an orthodox family at one time, and he understood the restraints Noam dealt with. He tapped into the kid’s psyche in ways no one else had. The problem is, he’s a psychopath who wants nothing more than to introduce Noam to his chaotic bloody murderous world. It’s up to Decker and Lazarus to find him and bring him home before the psychopath kills him. It’s a dizzying chase between New York, Los Angeles, and ultimately back to New York.
I was fascinated by the snapshot of how orthodox Jews live and celebrate their sacred holidays. You’ll learn much from this book without feeling like someone sought to teach you things. That’s a good kind of learning in which to engage.