Kellerman Fails To Be Spooky

Stalker by Faye Kellerman

I'm starting to wonder whether Faye Kellerman is getting bored with her characters. Not that I could blame her. She's an intelligent woman and may feel that she's already fully explored Rina and Peter Decker and there simply isn't much left to do with them-except to churn out novels to satisfy the fans who have not yet had enough.

Perhaps that's why she shifted her focus in Stalker. Instead of the homicide detective Peter or his Orthodox Jewish wife Rina being the main characters, we get a chance to become better acquainted with Peter's daughter, Cindy.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Peter Decker-Rina Lazarus series, allow me to make a quick introduction. Peter Decker is a former homicide detective, now a Lieutenant in Los Angeles. He's married to Rina Lazarus Decker, an Orthodox Jewish woman several years his junior. Peter converted to Orthodox Judaism and the two of them married. She had two children from her former marriage (she was a widow) and he had a daughter from his previous marriage (he was divorced). Together, they had another daughter. Cindy is Peter's daughter from his first marriage and the oldest of the children. She's graduated from an Ivy League school and then went on to the police academy.

Cindy is now a rookie cop in the Hollywood precinct. She's not real popular with her co-workers and we quickly find out why. Yes, she's an intelligent and competent cop. She's also mouthy, arrogant, and sarcastic with everyone who tries to be friendly to her. There are times when you want to send her to put her nose in the corner until she can learn to keep a civil tongue.

The opening scene reminded me of the opening of Thomas Harris' Hannibal, but Cindy's situation ended happily. She handles a domestic hostage situation with great flair, though she manages to engender the hostility of her co-workers at the same time. It is in this scene that my criticism of the book first begins. There seems to be an awful lot of over-reaction on the parts of her co-workers.

Her partner warns her that she needs to make a few friends, so she tries. Unfortunately, the person she decides to get extra-friendly with is a detective who works with her dad and is about the same age as her dad. I suppose I shouldn't say "unfortunately." It is the plot hook that manages to tie Cindy and Peter back together and the horny detective, Scott Oliver, does show more common sense than Cindy does.

Peter and his squad are working on a series of serial car hijackings. Cindy is a rookie cop who is suddenly noticing strange things going askew in her life: pictures are out of place in her apartment, spooky stick-it notes are being left in her car, and an increase in hostility in her workplace. The incidents increase in severity until we realize someone is planning serious harm to her.

Perhaps the strongest element of this book is its pacing. Kellerman keeps the plot moving and the tension very high. She employs a sparse writing style, including only those details which are necessary to further the plot or let us become more familiar with her characters.

Outside of the cops and crime plot, Kellerman does give us a few of her trademark domestic glimpses. Marge and Rina talk about parenting teenagers and we get to sit in on a Sabbath meal that is described so well you can smell the potatoes.

My major complaints about this book are that she fails to make her new protagonist, Cindy, a sympathetic character and she stretches the credibility of the plot and the character's actions. Cindy and Peter both do things that makes sense only in that it furthers the plot-the actions don't seem consistent with their established characters.

Likewise the ending destroyed almost any credibility because the timing just didn't work. I don't want to give away what happened, but suffice it to say that Kellerman set up an impossibility. She has two different story lines going simultaneously and one line uses up more time than is possible for where both lines ended up. It's a careless error. It does contribute to the suspense, but it leaves the reader feeling cheated.

Stalker isn't a bad book, it just isn't a very good one either. It's far better than Serpent's Tooth but not nearly as good as the early books in the series-or even as good as the one preceding it: Jupiter's Bones. It's a book to read only if you've read the rest of the series and want to continue to follow their adventures. It has its thrilling moments and a fast-moving plot, but it's otherwise pretty ordinary.

--B. Redman