The Forgotten by Faye Kellerman
A Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus Novel
HarperCollins Publishers - August 2001
ISBN: 0688156142 - Hardcopy
Suspense / Police Procedural

Reviewed by Robyn Glazer, MyShelf.com
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One of the worst feelings a person could have is to walk into your place of worship and find it desecrated. As the official caretaker of the shul, Rina Lazarus is the person the police call to let her know about the horrific vandalism. Rina rushes down to the shul and immediately calls her husband, Peter Decker, who is a police lieutenant. Peter Decker is furious that the police notified Rina before him but realizes that that is not the issue. The important thing is to find the animals that wrote anti semantic words all over the shul.

Through a school search, Decker finds evidence in the locker of a student and automatically arrests him. Although the teen vehemently insists he acted alone, Decker knows this is not truth but cannot get the boy to give up the name of his accomplices. Justice is meted out and supposedly everything is all good. That is until the teen and his psychiatrist are found murdered. Decker knows this must connected to the incident at the shul and refuses to give up until he finds the murderer.

The Forgotten is the thirteenth book in the Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker series. Although I did like this book more than I liked its predecessor, I was disappointed with several qualities of the book. The book was too long with way too much unneeded information. Another sore point was the lack of role that Rina played in this book. I miss Rina. She used to have a significant role in each book but now we are lucky if she is in more than a few scenes. Her quiet determination is what I miss the most and feel it takes something away from the book for it not to be included.

What I did like about this book was the realistic fathers relationship. Jacob and Peter realize they have a ways to go before their relationship can be considered peaceful but they work at it. They are not sickeningly sweet to each other, in fact there is much snapping but that is what makes their scenes together interesting. I wanted to know how and if they would ever accomplish a solid relationship. So, while this was not Mrs. Kellerman's finest book, it was not bad. I will definitely look for future books, in hopes Mrs. Kellerman brings back Rina.