The Forgotten
a Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novel # 13
by Faye Kellerman
Rina Lazarus is called by the police when her storefront synagogue is defaced with swastikas, anti-Semitic
graffiti, and Nazi death camp photographs. While volunteers assemble with mops and pails and paint brushes to
restore the synagogue, Rina's husband, LAPD homicide detective Peter Decker, investigates to find the guilty
party. He discovers that the perpetrator is 17-year-old Ernesto Golding, one of his stepson's classmates.
Ernesto, a very troubled teenager, can’t explain why he did it.
Ernesto and his therapist, Melvin Baldwin, are found brutally murdered. Decker remembers Ernesto's obsession
with the belief that his grandfather may have been a Nazi who posed as a Jew to escape to South America after the
war. Baldwin was tied to a hate group and, with his wife, was involved in a nature camp that practiced the
psychological and sexual manipulation of teenagers who are pressured by their parents to excel. Jacob, Rina's
son, is struggling with his adolescence in his attempt to reconcile his devotion to Judaism with the temptations
of contemporary life, such as drugs and sex. Peter and Rina must delve into the past and the horrors of the
Holocaust in order to rescue the troubled and desperate young people.
A complex and disturbing novel which is an excellent portrayal of the emotional life of a family, as well as a
psychological study of teenagers who must come to terms with parents who apply pressure for success. The book is
also a close look at computers and educational SATS.
Kellerman has woven themes of religious belief and familial respect into an engrossing thriller. |
The Book |
Avon, an imprint of HarperCollins |
July 2007 (reprint of August 2001) |
Paperback |
1003807530847 |
Fiction / suspense |
More at Amazon.com |
Excerpt |
NOTE: |
The Reviewer |
Barbara Buhrer |
Reviewed 2007 |
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