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A review by brettt
The Theory of Death by Faye Kellerman
4.0
Peter Decker and his wife Rina are settling in to their lives in an upstate New York college town, where Peter works for a small town police department and Rina teaches part-time. The longtime Angelenos aren't sure about the winters in their new home, but the closeness to their adult children and distance from LA's hectic pace make up for it.
The discovery of a body in the woods near the end of the fall semester challenges the small department, but it seems to be a pretty clear-cut suicide. As Peter and his sometime partner, Tyler McAdams, probe the insular world of the math department where the young man was a star, they find plenty going on beneath the surface but no reason to discount the coroner's ruling of a suicide. Until a second body is found, and then it turns out that the world of higher math can have just as many devious twists and turns as any other when people start dying, in Faye Kellerman's 23rd Decker-Lazarus novel, The Theory of Death.
As is often the case with long-running series, Kellerman has found a comfortable groove with her characters. Her relocation of them to upstate New York offers some new ways to consider them and the move to a small-town setting provides several new stages on which they can perform. Rather than direct a team of detectives to investigate a crime, Peter works his own shoe leather. Used to quick responses from large nearby forensic facilities, he chafes at the delays his current bucolic locale offers. Rina herself -- Rina Lazarus when the series began but Rina Decker since entry #4, Day of Atonement -- finds herself with enough time on her hands she can accompany Peter on some of his official business. Her presence proves a great help, as does that of McAdams, in town to study before his first semester law school finals.
Much of the first half of the series turned on Peter's study of and assimilation into Judaism, Rina's faith and that of his biological parents. The second half so far has turned on the couple's seemingly irresistible urge to parent and mentor teens and young adults. Peter and Rina welcome Tyler's presence and Peter is grateful for his help, but they both are firm in their direction that he study for his law school exams. Peter also continues to guide Tyler in his work as a detective, even though the younger man may not stay with the force, and the couple also play the yenta a little for him and an eligible young woman.
Theory revolves around a lot of somewhat esoteric math, but Kellerman uses her detectives -- who have no idea what the students and professors are talking about -- as a stand-in for those readers who have no idea what the students and professors are talking about so the mathematicians can explain their fields in more lay terms. Theory manages to take its new locations, situations and cast members and put an excellent shine on a well-known series.
Original available here.
The discovery of a body in the woods near the end of the fall semester challenges the small department, but it seems to be a pretty clear-cut suicide. As Peter and his sometime partner, Tyler McAdams, probe the insular world of the math department where the young man was a star, they find plenty going on beneath the surface but no reason to discount the coroner's ruling of a suicide. Until a second body is found, and then it turns out that the world of higher math can have just as many devious twists and turns as any other when people start dying, in Faye Kellerman's 23rd Decker-Lazarus novel, The Theory of Death.
As is often the case with long-running series, Kellerman has found a comfortable groove with her characters. Her relocation of them to upstate New York offers some new ways to consider them and the move to a small-town setting provides several new stages on which they can perform. Rather than direct a team of detectives to investigate a crime, Peter works his own shoe leather. Used to quick responses from large nearby forensic facilities, he chafes at the delays his current bucolic locale offers. Rina herself -- Rina Lazarus when the series began but Rina Decker since entry #4, Day of Atonement -- finds herself with enough time on her hands she can accompany Peter on some of his official business. Her presence proves a great help, as does that of McAdams, in town to study before his first semester law school finals.
Much of the first half of the series turned on Peter's study of and assimilation into Judaism, Rina's faith and that of his biological parents. The second half so far has turned on the couple's seemingly irresistible urge to parent and mentor teens and young adults. Peter and Rina welcome Tyler's presence and Peter is grateful for his help, but they both are firm in their direction that he study for his law school exams. Peter also continues to guide Tyler in his work as a detective, even though the younger man may not stay with the force, and the couple also play the yenta a little for him and an eligible young woman.
Theory revolves around a lot of somewhat esoteric math, but Kellerman uses her detectives -- who have no idea what the students and professors are talking about -- as a stand-in for those readers who have no idea what the students and professors are talking about so the mathematicians can explain their fields in more lay terms. Theory manages to take its new locations, situations and cast members and put an excellent shine on a well-known series.
Original available here.