The author of this book is the wife of Jonathan Kellerman whose books I have also reviewed. The Forgotten is, like her husband's books, a detective story and she told the story pretty well, I'd say.

The story centres around a Synagogue and the Jewish community in Los Angeles. There are a lot of Jewish words and phrases thrown into this story; and I wasn't sure whether that was done for effect, to show that Kellerman had done some research and she was determined to use it, or that Kellerman is Jewish and she feels the need to let us know. In other words, I felt the Jewishness got in the way of bits of the story although several aspects of it were crucial to the story line.

Basically, we follow from the desecration of the Synagogue to the solving of a series of murders of the desecrator and his psychiatric/homosexual/paedophilic lover, this psychiatrist's wife, the eating of the perpetrator by a wild big cat ...

Within the story we have a variety of sub plots involving Los
Angeles' rich kids and their parents and antics; and this includes a commentary on modern American society in that a key aspect of the plot involves cramming for University places, SATs tests and so on.

The detective at the centre of the story, Dexter, Loo, Lieutenant, is also Jewish and he comes across as a good man. He is educated, he has children and step children. He worries that he doesn't spend enough time with his family. We are allowed to act as voyeurs as he and his family get to grips with this aspect of his life. Dexter has problems with his step son: Kellerman has this problem just about resolved by the end of the book!

One thing that threw me completely much of the time was the habit that Kellerman gave to her characters of having several nicknames for her characters: that's why I said it was Dexter, Loo, Lieutenant ... and more. I didn't always cope with that: it reminds of the way that Russian communities can have Alexander known as Alexander, Sasha, Alyosha, Alex ...

I liked the way that Kellerman had her detectives working on their thoughts of who killed whom and why: rather than the standard, clinical, straight to the point and always right style, she included discussions that were side tracked, ridiculous, brainstorming discussions. This added a touch of realism to the whole thing as detectives MUST go down all sorts of alleyways and dead ends before they arrive at the right answer. Here we are! Well done Faye!

Overall, I liked this book and the story moved along nicely so that its 500 pages or so were not a burden. Kellerman has a good style, there weren't too many sub plots and twists and turns and the characters were all well developed, including the self made businessman who turned into a snivelling wretch at one stage ... comes from an interesting part of the story, by the way.

This book is worth the investment, I'd say!

 

Duncan Williamson
4 February 2003