Thumbs up for The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman. Mystery.
I have no idea why I love Jewish mysteries (yes, this is a subgenre), since I’m not Jewish and don’t much like mysteries: you can count yourself lucky that the era when I obsessively read everything by Harry Kemelman and Batya Gur was pre-blog. Frankly, I’m glad too. But a very boring day at work and the memory of having read an interesting interview with Mrs Kellerman led to me picking up this, the first book in her Decker/Lazarus series. I felt a bit like the author was not entirely comfortable writing from a man’s point of view – “let’s throw in more cuss words to make him sound manly” – but despite the at-times clunky or outdated writing, I liked the halting romance between Peter and Rina, the mystery (or was it mysteries?) was interesting, and nothing about the investigation strained my credulity. An enjoyable quick read.
“Pekuach nefesh. The saving of a life takes precedence over everything in Judaism.” She looked upward. “Forgive me if I improvise a little.”
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