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A female Jewish Cop in LAPD, hard hard hard!, Avril 28 2004
This is a detective story of a new style. In a way an inside story of the LAPD. Cynthia Decker is a cop on the beat in Hollywood. We follow her step by step in a period of her professional life, her transition year from officer to detective. This period is centered on one particular case : the story of Sarah Sanders and her discarded baby. This leads to exploring the world of handicaped people in LA, their problems, their reactions to life and their ways of thinking and behaving. But this also leads to a network or gang of people who are taking advantage of retarded women with a gang rape and a shadowy character who seduces them, uses them and then discards them. Violence is of course part of the picture : a man is beaten up, a woman is hit and run to death, Cynthia Decker is the victim of an attemped murder, etc. But the interest of the book goes a lot farther. It explores the institution known as the LAPD, its inside rivalries, careerism and ambitions, its legal limitations that prevent efficiency, and the necessity at times to go beyond these limits to get the information and the lead an investigation needs, and even the difficulty for women to be really equal in this institution that is definitely male-dominated. Even further it explores the problem of racism inside the institution and of the insritution towards society at large : racial prejudice is an everyday reality and it requires a lot of work to get rid of it or at least to neutralize it. But even further, Cynthia Decker being Jewish, it goes into exploring the Jewish community she lives in, with openings to the old antisemitism of Germany in the 30s, to antisemitism in America today, to the Jewish commmunity spirit both religious and social or cultural, etc. This exploration of Jewish culture is extremely interesting and it is the basis of the motivations of several characters in the book as for their involvement in police work and hospital work. The book brings the case to an end which is in a way a satisfying ending giving answers to all the questions asked in the novel. It has a few flaws that limit the effectiveness of the reasoning. For instance, the fact that the killer is an Iraqi disguising himself as a Mexican is a little bit easy. Sex offenders come from all walks of life and all social strata. It would have been a lot more effective if this character had been a plain American citizen, because most offenders in this field are plain American people, in general plain citizens in any country who are characterized most of the time as simple, lackluster and just nice neighbors. In the same way the anti-arab or anti-Palestinian stand of some characters, though perfectly true among some Jews is provided to us without any distanciation and without what is essential among Jews : all Jews are not thinking along this line and quite many of them remember their past and refuse to reproduce this past against the Palestinians, even in Israel itself. It is also too easy to reduce, the way the book does, the national struggle of Palestinians to terrorism. But apart from these flaws, the book is interesting because it goes beyond the plain criminal details into the psyche and consciousness of the people at stake, particularly the cops. Cops are definitely not simple-minded people : they do have a culture, an ethical stand and doubts about their involvement in society and the way they have to work to find criminals in a society that is definitely opaque and obscure, a characteristic that enables criminals to hide very easily.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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Good Story, Mars 9 2004
Par Un client
I enjoyed Faye Kellermans "Street Dreams". A little diferent then her other stories since this one centered around Lt.Deckers daughter. I have read all Faye Kellermans books and like them all.
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Cindy Decker is Destined to be a Major Player, Like her Dad, Nov. 2 2003
Police Officer Cindy Decker (daughter of Pete) on a routine patrol finds a newborn baby abandoned in a dumpster. When the search for the baby's mother leads her to a mentally retarded young woman, she starts to think that something sinister may have happened. With the grudging support of her supervisors, she begins looking for a possible rapist who preys on these extremely vulnerable targets. The situation becomes more urgent when another retarded woman dies under suspicious circumstances. Cindy seeks advice and guidance from her father, who continues to deal with the conflicting urges to both help his daughter solve the crime and protect her from danger.
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"A new generation begins", Oct. 27 2003
Sweet Dreams begins a new generation of family and past in this series. I enjoyed this story. The characters are interesting, the dialogue is lively, and the plot intriguing. A very appealing combination.John Savoy
Savoy International
Motion Pictures Inc.
California
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Best read in proper order, Oct. 18 2003
Kellerman's favorite couple, Pete Decker and Rina Lazarus, have a long history. Street Dreams assumes readers are familiar with that history, which is a good thing for readers who have followed the series from the beginning - but not so good for readers picking this book without some background. It works as a stand-alone, but just barely.
But true fans and followers of the Decker/Lazarus union will relish this solid whodunit as it takes the pair's relationship to new heights.
Cindy, Pete's adult daughter by a 1st marriage, plays a major role as a rookie cop in Street Dreams. She investigates the case of a developmentally disabled teenager who abandoned her baby, says she was raped, and might have been an unwitting witness to a murder. Good stuff. Read it.
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A Well-Crafted and Immensely Readable Story, Oct. 4 2003
Street dreams are the nightmares of rookie cops --- dreams of violence, fear and mistakes. In Faye Kellerman's latest novel, STREET DREAMS, LAPD officer Cindy Decker has had a traumatic year on the force and at night dreads the street dreams she has in her sleep. But a new case and a new person in her life are about to occupy her time, her thoughts and her energy.One night Decker is flagged down in her patrol car and brought to an alley. A restaurant employee taking out the trash hears the cries of a baby and Cindy quickly dives into the dumpster and recovers the newborn. She sees that the baby is safe in the hospital that night and is impressed by Koby, the handsome and intense pediatric nurse on duty. She now must find the mother of the baby and make sure she is safe and healthy as well. The search for the baby's mother takes her around Hollywood, from alleyways to bus stops to local haunts to high schools and eventually to a school for developmentally challenged young people. She soon identifies the mother as a mentally retarded young woman named Sarah, whose boyfriend, the father of the baby, disappeared months ago. Now that Cindy knows the baby and the mother are safe, she decides to work in her spare time to find David, the baby's father. Finding David proves harder than finding Sarah. But with the help of her father, Lieutenant Peter Decker, Cindy navigates a world of thugs and gangsters to locate him and bring him the news of the birth of his daughter as well as to make sure he is safe after the brutal attack he and Sarah had suffered the day he disappeared. Cindy's search for the baby's parents leads her to other crimes that had been previously unknown but that end in a brutal hit-and-run accident. Cindy witnesses this accident, and it only fuels her desire to figure out the culprit and what this may have to do with David and Sarah. She does much of her work in her off-time and knows she must be careful not to damage her fledgling law enforcement career. Her father helps to balance her enthusiasm with good police work. In addition to their busy work schedules, Peter and Cindy are also busy in their personal lives. Kellerman's readers are familiar with Peter, his wife Rina and their children --- and they do form a subplot in this novel. Meanwhile, Cindy is forming an intense and interesting relationship with the nurse Koby, an Ethiopian Jew who lived in Israel before coming to the U.S. Cindy and Koby's relationship intensifies quickly and balances the police/crime aspect of the novel. Kellerman fans have come to know and enjoy this balance of personal and emotional with mystery. Those who prefer their crime novels with no sentimentality (much less romance) will find themselves skimming the pages concerning Cindy and Koby's courtship in order to get back to the story of Cindy chasing the gang members who brutalized David and Sarah. STREET DREAMS will not disappoint Kellerman fans. The Decker family dynamics are here as well as an interesting mystery. Cindy is not as developed as her father Peter and stepmother Rina, and this case has less urgency than some of the other Decker/Lazarus novels. Still, it is enjoyable and well written. Cindy and Peter are not as dynamic a duo as Peter and Rina, but the father-daughter relationship complicates both the police work and Cindy's romance just enough for some great literary tension. STREET DREAMS should appeal not only to those familiar with Kellerman's work but also to those looking for a well-crafted and immensely readable story. --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
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Father and Daughter join in this edgy mystery, Sep 8 2003
This was the first Faye Kellerman I've ever read, and I certainly got the sensation that I was stepping into a book mid-series, but nowhere in the plot did I feel that I'd missed too much to understand the story or the characters.
The plot in this book has a simple enough set-up: an LAPD cop, Cindy Decker, finds a baby abandoned in a dumpster. When she grows far more attached than professional, she enlists the aid of her detective father, Peter Decker, to try to figure out where the baby came from, and who the mother was. When the answer is unsettling, Cindy delves deeper. Each new wrinkle in the case seems meaner and darker than before, and soon Cindy is a target, something she is all too recently familiar with - for Cindy is a rape survivor.
Kellerman kept these characters very plausible, emotionally speaking, and I quite enjoyed the first-person narrative of Cindy Decker. Where I lost a bit of steam was the often abrupt slip into third person that occurred whenever the spotlight was on her father, Peter, or other players in the story. Their emotional baggage with each other (far more loaded than most fathers and daughters) is well written, and the tension really aids in jacking up the pace of the story.
The two sub-plots are also wisely written and interesting: First, Peter's wife, and orthodox Jew, is looking into the past of her mother (and her grandmother's murder), in the dark history of Hitler's Germany, to very intruiging results. And second, Cindy has a developing relationship with (also Jewish) Ethiopian black Koby, which shows some pretty edgy takes on bias and racism, as well as some quite steamy passages of passion between the two.
All in all, very satisfying in and of itself (and even to someone who has not read Kellerman before), but I must admit, my appetite is whetted for Kellerman now.
'Nathan
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second generation comes into its own, Aoû 25 2003
In some ways I found this book confusing, being used to Peter Decker as the "first person speaker" in Faye Kellerman's books. But I found it interesting to carry the Decker family into the second generation and follow the relationships of Cindy as well as her parents. There were two ongoing plots, one with Cindy and one with her stepmother Rina and her dad Peter. They were, in a sense, looking for a murderer of two generations ago. This murder was never resolved and I personally felt the whole plot belonged in another book. The main plot, tracking down an abuser of retarded women, took enough twists and turns to keep me interested and resolved itself in an interesting way. The side plots Cindy's new love interest, an Ethiopian Jew who works as a nurse, was fun, except that I tired of hearing them talk about how beautiful each other is. Okay, beauty is fine. But let's talk about how bright each other is too. Well, they did, just not nearly as frequently. But overall, I think Kellerman is successful in bringing the Decker family into the new generation and hopefully she has a lot more Cindy stories to tell.
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Good, fast reading, Aoû 23 2003
The book was a good mystery and kept me interested throughout. Cindy Decker is becoming a good cop and her lieutenant father, was integral to the plot. I was troubled by the turn that Cindy's romantic life took. I don't think I was ready for this part of the book. I enjoy mysteries, not social commentary.
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Fun read starring Decker's cop daughter Cindy !, Aoû 19 2003
With more than a dozen books in the popular Rina Lazarus/Peter Decker series, Faye Kellerman's new books are normally anxiously awaited by her fans. We've come to enjoy the clever mysteries solved by this conservative Jewish couple, with fairly detailed expositions of the Jewish religion part of the nominal price of admission. In one earlier book, "Stalker", Decker's daughter by his first marriage, Cindy, now an LAPD officer, was the central character in an compelling story of danger and crime solving. In "Street Dreams", so titled from the recurring nightmares she has of her earlier experience, Cindy once again plays front and center, the opening premise about a still-alive baby she finds in a dumpster. Through some brilliant and persistent sleuthing, above the call of duty for a "mere" officer not yet on the official (ï¿gold shieldï¿) Detective staff, Cindy finds not only the natural mother but pursues strong leads to the probable natural father. Along the way, and with just a little help from her father Peter, Cindy helps track down a hit and run killer while getting leads on some dangerous gang members. All in all, the mystery had an entertaining plot and a nicely drawn conclusion.Unlike most of Kellerman's stories which feature sometimes almost overwhelming descriptions of Jewish orthodox practices, in this novel she provides a love interest for Cindy in the form of a male nurse named Yaakov "Koby" Kutiel, an African who turns out to be an Ethiopian Jew. When things get hot between the two, some interesting scenes take place when Cindy decides to take Koby home for Sabbath dinner. The family reactions to the mixed race couple varies from shock by daddy Peter to immediate acceptance by mama Rina, that latter based on the simple binary discriminator that Koby is a Jew. A great deal of interesting dialogue from these characters as well as some of the detectives spoke to the issue of mixed race and faiths, and added a provocative element to the main story line without "taking sides". To us, this is one of the best Kellerman offerings in the recent past. Her usual excellent story telling, combined with social issues of concern to all, with just passing indulgence in Jewish practices, make "Dreams" a novel that should enjoy broad reader delight. Read it!
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Ce produit
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Street Dreams par Faye Kellerman (Mass Market Paperback - Juil 1 2004)
CDN$ 10.99 CDN$ 9.89
Habituellement expédié sous 3 à 5 semaines
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Accueil Amazon
