Sacred and Profane audiobook

So, after liking the first 2 of these I read (the first I read was one farther along in the series) I've continued to follow our hero(es) through "life".And they have an eventful life.The detective is in love with our heroine. Our heroine however is a devout and actually believing and practicing Jew. There seems to be no way things can work out...even if they do love each other.Now Peter has to look at his life.Meanwhile psychopaths seem to proliferate.These books are well written. The romance growing between the protagonists does not take away from the story (of course if you like romance that wouldn't really be a concern). Their private life integrates and it's simply part of the story as a whole. The plot flows, the characters are complete and while I'm not usually into books where the detective's private life is a factor, these I like.I can recommend this one also. Enjoy.

As a police procedural, this one was better than the first book in the series and more exciting (though rather violent and harrowing). One thing that bugs me is that sometimes Ms. Kellerman takes an odd shortcut with the plot (e.g. a mysterious criminal holds important clues; nobody knows much about him except his first name (say, Marmarisco); you'd think that tracking him would be hard - but then Chapter x just begins with something like "Decker was meeting Marmarisco. Marmarisco was going to tell him ..."). It feels as if a couple of chapters were edited out. The first time I came across this kind of shortcut in Ritual Bath I thought I had actually missed a chapter. The good news, though, is that it only happened once in this book, as opposed to about 3 times in the previous one.As for the relationship between Peter and Rina, it was interesting. A bit of fairy tale stuff but I'm okay with that - this is art, not life, so get used to it.Will be getting the next one :)

Still a learning curve for me - which is a good thing! I am enjoying this series. I do recommend it to those that like police procedurals.2 thumbs up and 4 starsFrom the blurb: Los Angeles Police Detective Peter Decker had grown very close to Rina's young sons, Sammy and Jake, as he had to their mother, and he looked forward to spending a day of his vacation camping with the boys. A nice reprieve from the grueling work of a homicide cop-until Sammy stumbles upon a gruesome sight...Two human skeletons, charred beyond recognition, are identified by a forensic dentist as teenage girls--and for Decker, the father of a sixteen-year-old daughter, vacation time is over. Throwing himself professionally and emotionally into the murder case, he launches a very personal investigation: a quest that pulls him deep into the crack dens of Hollywood Boulevard and painfully close to the children of the streets and a nightmare world he must make his own.

I bought this book several years ago after reading about the author in an article on Southern California writers. Finally got around to reading it, and now I'm hooked on the series. I haven't read the first book, so I plan on reading it soon. Living just outside LA I like the setting in Southern California, and find the beginning of the relationship between Decker and Lazarus intriguing. Also interesting that Decker is studying Judaism and seeing his struggle with faith. The plot line is deceiving, easy to predict some early developments, but before the end there are plenty of surprises.

Check out current lists of popular mystery novels, and you'll find many written by authors whose first language isn't English, or who don't speak or write English at all. (I'm referring to those whose works are translated into English.) "International" detective stories and thrillers now crowd the bestseller lists as readers increasingly reach for novels that reflect unfamiliar cultures, languages, and settings. Scandinavian noir is only the most familiar example of this trend.But Chester Himes' Harlem Detective series proved early on that America also offers settings most readers would find exotic, too. So did Tony Hillerman's novels set in the Navajo Nation. And though Faye Kellerman's work is less well known than theirs, her Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series richly deserves equal attention.Novels that highlight Orthodox Jewish religious practicesMost Americans, including a large number of American Jews, are unfamiliar with Orthodox religious practices and beliefs. In Sacred and Profane, and in its predecessor, The Ritual Bath, Kellerman brings those practices and beliefs into the spotlight. The picture she paints of an insular culture is compelling. And it doesn't hurt that she writes well and has mastered the techniques of mystery and suspense fiction. Equally important, Kellerman demonstrates a deep understanding of human psychology; her portraits of Peter and Rina are unusually well developed. Both books are superior examples of the genre.In The Ritual Bath, we met LAPD Detective Sergeant Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus as they come together around a brutal rape at an isolated Orthodox community called the Yeshiva Ohavei Torah. Rina is a widow, still in her twenties, with two young sons. Peter and Rina are both heavily involved in the investigation of the rape and subsequent events. The two fall in love despite their dramatic religious differences. But what they fear is that "marriage doesn't reduce differences, it magnifies them.""Decker found faith hard to come by"Now, in Sacred and Profane, set six months after the events in The Ritual Bath, Peter and Rina are struggling with those differences as their love deepens. Their relationship is "ambiguous. He and Rina were in love but not yet lovers." To make it possible for them to marry, Peter has agreed to become a Torah Jew. He is studying Hebrew and the Jewish Bible with the Rosh Yeshiva (the head rabbi). Although he is learning quickly, Peter doesn't fully share Rina's and the rabbi's faith. "Seeing life through the skewed eye of a cop, Decker found faith hard to come by." And that doesn't bode well for their future.As Sacred and Profane opens, Peter is on a camping trip in the wilderness with Rina's sons when the older boy stumbles across two charred skeletons. Thus begins an increasingly fraught investigation into the identity of two murdered young people—an investigation that will bring Peter into contact with the most extreme aspects of human depravity. What he finds will test his sanity and his relationship with the woman he loves.About the authorFaye Kellerman has written thirty-three novels to date, including twenty-five in the Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series. She holds a B.A. in mathematics and a D.D.S, although she has never practiced dentistry. Both her husband, Jonathan Kellerman, and two of her four children are successful mystery novelists.

Definitely one of my favorite novels in a set of very ,very, good procedural mysteries with Peter Decker and Rinna Lazarus as main characters. Peter Decker is a hard boiled cop/detective with a heart of gold who is seriously involved with a much younger devoutly religious woman named Rinna. While taking what he hopes to be his step sons camping, the oldest boy and he discover the charred remains of two female victims of pornographic sex ring.The psychological consequences of this discovery and the proceeding case has Peter strongly questioning his religious faith and his relationship with Rinna, who thinks of Peter as basheert. The story that follows is a gritty but thought provoking tale of the existence of good in a world of evil. I received this novel as part of the Goodreads giveaway program in exchange for an honest review, which I have had no trouble writing. I recommend this book highly to those who wish to know more about the Jewish religious culture,and those who like procedural detective/cop type novels. The subject matter while brutal is handled without being overly graphic or sensation seeking. This might be the only drawback to some readers with hyper-awareness to these type of situations. Still all in all, this is a novel well worth your time and despite any possible issue you might have with a subject matter.

Sacred and Profane by Faye Kellerman is the 2nd book in the Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Mystery series. Police detective Peter Decker is camping with Rina's two young boys when one of them discovers two burnt skeletons. A rather gruesome and harrowing book. There is also a lot of tension in the relationship field. A well written but disturbing story.

The second novel of the excellent Peter Decker/ Rina Lazarus series -- which I am re-reading after a long number of years-- is a very worthy follow up to The Ritual Bath. While an excellent police procedural, the author makes the key characters human with their developing love relationship and the religious and family conflicts to be resolved, all set against the murder mystery background that takes Decker into a very seamy part of the Hollywood scene. Simply put, the police procedural part of the novel could stand alone, but the author, by combining the human aspects of the characters, has continued to lay a strong foundation for the series. I highly recommend the series for mystery fans.

This is the first Faye Kellerman book I have read, and I enjoyed.The main character is Peter, a homicide cop who is converting to Judaism to marry Rina. While camping with her sons, he stumbles upon two burned corpses.The book follows the forensic investigation of the murders, and well as Peter's journey to find his true faith calling.I liked the twists and turns of the mystery, as well as the confliction Peter felt for the love of a woman who would only have him if he became an Orthodox Jew. He wanted her so badly that he would take on a lifestyle he was not ready... or wanted to have.The plot of the deaths followed a path into a part of one's soul that made you search for the good in human being, as Peter saw the worst through the investigation.I like the mystery, and the love story/conversion was just at the right percentage of the book. It never got too religious, but took more of a moral turn on giving up so much of one's self for another.I would recommend this book to all mystery lovers.

This is the first Faye Kellerman book I've read, and I'm pleasantly surprised. The plot was compelling enough and the characters likable. But the thing that surprised me most is the deftness with which she, within the genre of detective/crime fiction, addressed issues of faith. Made more palatable to the reading public, no doubt, by the fact that the faith in question is orthodox Judaism, and so enough outside the majority Christian religion to be comfortable in our pluralistic proselitism-phobic society, it was also refreshing and enjoyable to read of the police detective's struggle to maintain connection to his religious quest while navigating the sordid underworld of L.A. porn and snuff-porn films.

One of the early Decker/Lazarus novels, before they are married. The title is apt, as Decker alternates between two universes. On the one hand, he is studying the Jewish religion, a pre-condition of his hoped for marriage to Rina. On the other hand, he has descended into the depths of violent pornography and disgusting criminals. A solid detective story and significant character development indicative of what is to come in this excellent series. Decker's ambivalence toward Judaism, and indeed toward any religion, is a powerful sub-plot that adds Kellerman's "more than just a detective story" trademark.

I love Peter Decker novels.