Serpent's Tooth: A Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus Novel (Decker/Lazarus Novels)

Brothers and sisters, moms and dads; evil lurks in the hearts of many. A good mystery with few plot surprises. Faye Kellerman is a much better writer than her husband Jonathan, and this is mostly a good series. Series novels can stand alone, and this one does. If you feel like an engaging but not

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taxing mystery, this is a good read.

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This is the 10th in the Decker/Lazarus series. Love this series and this is one of the goods ones of the series.

Back Cover Blurb:
A busy night at an elegant restaurant. Minutes later a gunman opens fire. Thirteen people are dead, dozens wounded, the medics working frantically to save them. Your

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worst nightmare. But at least the culprit seems clear. An ex-employee ambled up to the bar then sprayed the room with bullets, finally turning the gun on himself. But Lieutenant Peter Decker, in charge of the investigation, needs to understand what drove the man to such a terrible act. And some details don't quite add up.
Then when he interviews an attractive woman whose wealthy parents were killed in the massacre he finds himself suddenly slapped with a sexual harassment suit - an accusation that means an interview by the police complaints authority, exposing his wife Rina and their complex past relationship to their salacious scrutiny.....
Somehow, he must discover the truth behind these horrible murders and bring to justice the well-connected woman he now believes to be a ruthless killer - without losing the career that, along with his family, is his life.....

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An apparently disgruntled ex-employee goes on a killing spree in a restaurant, but after closer inspection, it seems there may have been more than one gunman, one with a very different agenda from the other. Another good installment in the series. This one has the regular twists and mixes in a

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little sexual politics to keep the interest high. Recommended if you already like the series and its characters - if not, you may find the somewhat condescending tone towards women a little off-putting.

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very clumsy style, sometimes i wondered if some temp had written it and kellerman had forgotten to edit the novel in the end.

Cindy Decker, Lt. Peter Decker's older daughter, gets to be the main female character in this offering, rather than Rina. There were plenty of characters to dislike, enough so that the last page was particularly satisfying.

Still, Cindy isn't as interesting as her stepmother. I had over 120 pages to

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go when I set this book down to reread the Meg Langslow mystery series by Donna Andrews. Still, I was going to return Serpent's Tooth with some library books on CD and was stuck waiting for my car long enough to finish it.

Yes, I'm pleased that the last chapters were worth reading after all.

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After a horrific mass murder at a fashionable restaurant, Lieutenant Peter Decker is placed in charge of the follow up investigation. He slowly uncovers layer after layer of corruption involving drugs, high school students, tennis players and leading them all, a beautiful woman who seems to have a

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connection to everyone involved in the massacre. Jeanine Garrison initially tries to seduce Decker but becomes vicious when he rejects her advances and falsely accuses him of sexual harassment. It's a very fast moving plot, easy to read and therefore almost “unputdownable”-I loved it!

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One of the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novels, this is one of those procedurals that has so many characters, and so many twists and turns, that it's most easily read in long bursts. But, as ever, Kellerman's characters are so clear that the book's inertia carries it along.

I'm not sure I enjoyed this

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one as much as others in the series--it felt like there were a few too many layers, to the point where so much was going on that some of the power of any one subplot almost had to be buried. Having been away from the series for a while, it was also hard at first to drop back into the old relationships and characters here, so that I imagine I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been reading the books more recently.

Still, it was an enjoyable escape and an easy read, with more than enough twists and seeming dead-ends to keep it interesting.

I'd recommend the series, though I'd probably recommend starting with the earlier books.

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Serpent's Tooth is a consistent story. The characters were believable with good and bad guys. The settings were believable. The book was not remarkable in any way consequently only 31/2 stars.