THE BURNT HOUSE & COLD CASE.

THE BURNT HOUSE and COLD CASE (published as The Mercedes Coffin in the US)  by FAYE KELLERMAN.

Books 16 and 17 in the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series. Whilst each of the books deals with a separate case I strongly recommend that they be read in order (I read the previous books pre-Pen and Paper) as as well as the crimes themselves the books predictably follow family life in the Decker/Lazarus household, the earlier ones in particular dealing with Peter's journey into orthodox Judaism after he discovers his birth parents were Jewish.


SOURCE: Purchased from amazon.co.uk


THE BOOK: Details here.

FIRST SENTENCE {Prologue}: At eight-fifteen in the morning on a balmy Los Angeles winter's day, a 282 Lucent Industry Aircraft, better known as WestAir flight 1324, took off from Burbank Airport holding forty-seven commuters.

MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 234}: Oliver held up his mobile. "I just called your cell, Mr. Dresden." He pointed to the pink case. "That baby isn't ringing, but your pocket is."

MY THOUGHTS: With two cases to solve, one of which could have happened any time over the previous thirty years, as is nearly always the case with Faye Kellerman's books The Burnt House is an intelligent, multi-layered crime thriller with the unique addition of a religious aspect in which the author goes to great pains to illuminate the ins-and- outs of every day orthodox life though in this case the domestic (a huge part of the series appeal to me) was not quite as prevalent as in previous books.

Gripped from beginning to end. I thought the 'was she actually dead and if so whodunit' aspect riveting, the advances in some of the forensic procedures depicted particularly fascinating.

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SOURCE: Ex-library stock.

THE BOOK: Details here.

FIRST SENTENCE {Chapter 1}: Twenty-five years ago, they were called nerds.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS {Page 160}:He went into Banks's place, squatted and swabbed a small blotch on the baseboard of the kitchen. The Q-tip turned blue.

MY THOUGHTS: Not one of the authors best offerings it has to be said (a rating of three stars for me usually signifies average but OK, in this instance it represents a poor average). If this had been the first book in the series I had read whilst I'm sure I would have enjoyed it I'm not convinced I would have gone out of my way to read any of the other books.

Despite the synopsis of the English edition of the book which states that Decker 'enlists the help of his daughter, Hollywood detective Cindy, as well as Rina, his wife' the book lacks any real impact from Rina Lazarus (this aspect of the books having lessened the further into the series you get) it was however the confusing, somewhat damp squib of an ending that left me thinking I'd missed something essential that really let the novel down.