Monday, July 20

A Garden of Eden and Other Criminal Delights - Faye Kellerman

The title story is a purpose written tale involving Kellerman's chief protagonist, detective Peter Decker, his wife Rina Lazarus, gardening and a mystery - the mystery is very much less the focus of the story than the relationship between these much loved and long-lasting characters, and also plays second fiddle to the plants.
This short story collection also includes a mystery involving Decker's daughter Cindy, newly graduated from the police academy, a mystery unrelated to the Decker/Lazarus family, and two autobiographical vignettes in its seventeen-item quiver that has a uniting theme of family.
Some of the work is certainly darker than Kellerman's usual fare, with two particularly uncomfortable pieces - "Mummy and Jack" about an intertwined, interdependent, dysfunctional mother/son relationship, and "Bonding," which combines teen prostitution, quasi-consensual incest and murder.
Although husband Jonathan is better known, I've always enjoyed Faye's novels more, partly because of the stronger domestic aspect but also because of the way she weaves Judaism through both the text and the plot. Her novels combine character development with the mystery plot, adding layers of depth to each new installment.
I was therefore disappointed by the thinner, less intricate and less surprising plots in this collection. Even allowing for the shorter, and therefore less complex nature of the writing, I found both the ideas and the execution somewhat pedestrian. This may in part be because some of the entries were co-written with Kellerman's children, including novelist Jesse, or perhaps just because I was in the wrong frame of mind at the time of reading. In any case I think I'll stick to Kellerman's novels from here on in. - Alex

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