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The Burnt House
A Peter Decker / Rina Lazarus novel #16

by Faye Kellerman



      A commuter plane crashes into an apartment house in Granada Hills, California.  All passengers are killed.  Lt. Peter Decker is called in to investigate the crash..

The parents of flight attendant Roseanne Dresden, who was supposedly killed in the crash, claim she was not on the plane.  They claim that her husband,Ivan, murdered Roseanne who had planned on divorcing him.  Ivan claims his wife joined the downed plane at the last minute. Peter is confronted with an unidentified skeleton unearthed beneath the wreckage of the plane in the building. He is drawn into the past in his quest for the truth about the skeleton and about the missing Roseanne.

The plot is an intriguing and complex one with forays into past decades.  There is much detail about forensic techniques and police procedures. The usual glimpses of Peter and Rina and the family and the rituals of the Jewish faith that have been so much a part of previous novels are lacking and are missed.

Burnt House is enjoyable to read to solve the questions raised by the plot, but it does not reach the usual high standard of Kellerman's former work in suspense and action.

The Book

William Morrow / Harper Collins
August 2007
Hardcover
0061227323
Mystery
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Excerpt
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The Reviewer

Barbara Buhrer
Reviewed 2008
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