The Lost Boys
By Faye Kellerman
(William Morrow)

In the latest (26th) Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus mystery, two missing persons cases overlap. Peter, the famously observant Jewish detective, has retired from the LAPD and is living with his wife, Rina, in a sleepy college town in upstate New York, where he finds a job with the local police department. Bertram Lanz, a 35-year-old man with cognitive disabilities, disappears from a diner during a field trip arranged by the Loving Care residential home. Almost concurrently, the remains of a college student turn up in the woods. While trying to untangle the strands in the Lanz case as more people go missing, Decker reopens a decade-old cold case of three college students who vanished during a camping trip. Throw in the sudden reappearance of the biological mother of Peter and Rina’s foster son, Gabe, and things get complicated. Faye Kellerman, as always, manages to juggle it all.

Peter and Rina’s warm and caring Jewish family life remains the trademark of the series. Rina is almost too good to be true: a comforting motherly presence with an incisive mind, the perfect helpmate who waits up for her husband until 3 a.m., offers theories on his cases and barbecues steaks and asparagus in a pink cotton dress with a sunflower apron while listening to divrei Torah on her AirPods. Nevertheless, the Decker-Lazarus family reflects modern life, a diverse clan with biological children, stepchildren and a foster son who converted to Judaism and now has a Persian Jewish fiancée.

The values of Shabbat and hachnasat orchim, hospitality, are front and center. Peter and Rina welcome his junior partner, Tyler McAdams, to share numerous meals with them, including Shabbat dinner. Peter, approaching 70, doesn’t shy away from confronting his age (“May it be many years before you know heartburn”) in easy banter with Tyler. Fans will want to stay tuned as Peter and Rina’s plans for the future unfold.

DON’T MISS:

Faye Kellerman Joins One Book, One Hadassah!
Wednesday, February 10 at 7p.m. EST

Rahel Musleah leads “NamaStay at Home,” a series of virtual tours of Jewish India and other cultural events (explorejewishindia.com).