Milk and Honey

De: Faye Kellerman

Narrado por: Mitchell Greenberg

In the silent pre-dawn city hours - alone with his thoughts about Rina Lazarus, the woman he loves, 3,000 miles away in New York - L.A.P.D. detective Peter Decker finds a small child, abandoned and covered in blood that is not his. It is a sobering discovery, and a perplexing one, for nobody in the development where she was found steps forward to claim the little girl. Obsessed more deeply by this case than he imagined possible, Decker is determined to follow the scant clues to an answer.

But his trail is leading him to a killing ground where four bodies lie still and lifeless. And by the time Rina returns, Peter Decker is already held fast in a sticky mass of hatred, passion, and murder - in a world where intense sweetness is accompanied by a deadly sting.

©1990 Faye Kellerman (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers

Decker and Rina and a host of memorables

This latest installment in the series brings back all of the characters we've come to know and introduces us to a face from Decker's past. New insights into the character while solving more twisted crimes. Does not dissapoint.

dragged

I like Faye Kellerman but couldn't stay with this story. Usually I like the whole Decker thing but this must have been written before she refined her characters. It dragged and the thisonesaid this and thatonesaid that was exasperating. I quit halfway through part 1. Sure would like to know what happened to the little kid but just couldn't take anymore.

Milk and Honey

Good book -you will not be disappointed

interesting peek into Jewish Orthodoxy

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Probably not. Our reading hours are too short; so why go for an average book? I do remember reading this when it was newly released in 1990 and I liked it much better then than I do today. Some of what turned me off was the use of the n-word, and some views that seem close-minded to me today.

I will say that I didn't guess the culprit right up front. The ending had an element of surprise to me and that is always a good thing when reading a mystery.

Good Story

the series is beginning to spend too much fluff time on the relationship between Decker and Rena but not very high quality conversations amongst them, seems they only fight and screw and fight and screw now.
the Macho misogynistic language is atrocious! you can tell this is over 2 decades old!
Decker really rubbed me the wrong way as a character in this installment with his 'my woman ' commentary.
the story of the crime is definitely the highlight (as it should be!). the story is both creative and entertaining. shame the book did not stretch far enough to fit more story details to overshadow the bad characters' stories and backgrounds- what really was the point of the friend sleeping with some rich woman? didn't do much to sway opinion any which way about this weak filler.
I might buy the next one. after this one, not sure.

Better Decker and triple plots

Decker has only one hard-to-believe adult temper tantrum in Milk and Honey. This time we actually get an explanation of where his toddler behavior comes from. Furthermore, Rina has a much more appropriate response, rather than her erstwhile passive love-struck attitude. We also observe his receipt of some down-and-dirty anger management.

Finally, we get to know Marge better through her adoption of her own case and we meet a fascinating character from Decker's past. The intertwined plots are kept identifiable as are the numerous criminals and victims. Mitch Greenberg's narration is partially responsible for the clear separation of distinct personalities. There are a couple of female voices that are a bit jarring, but I am glad that I stuck with the first two books to get to this one.

long story filling in character

Peter Decker's history is explored and fills in info to set up more in the series. The plot grows from lost child to murder but gets dragged out a bit.

Not as good as the first 2...

Something about this story just did not feel as engaging as the first 2. For the first time, I took issue with Peter as a character--though the book does acknowledge that his actions are problematic, and I don't expect my protagonists to be above reproach. Just, Peter's behavior in this book was close to a type of behavior that sets off particular alarm bells, and so it was harder to simply enjoy the mystery.

Rina is also now basically just the love interest, and I miss her involvement in working cases.

Surprise web

Enjoyed every turn and twist in this riveting mystery. Wonderful colorful characters weave into and out of the families and keep the reader guessing to the very end.

Milk and Honey - Faye Kellerman

Detective Pete Decker finds a little girl on patrol one night, and in his quest to find out who she is and who she belongs to, uncovers a grisly quadruple murder scene.

This is a tough review to write. The overall mystery involving the little girl and the murders was good, and the only real reason I kept listening. But, and this is a big one for me, Pete Decker is a pig. He's verbally abusive to his fiancee on several occasions, and treats her like she's a little girl. "You only talk to other men if I'm with you" "You can't handle my car, take the Jeep instead, it's easier to drive" and to another detective "Don't talk like that in front of my woman. She's too good to hear that language". It was ridiculous and really hard to read. Well, hear. There were a lot of characters portrayed as really backwoods, and the n-word was sprinkled liberally throughout the story, making me cringe every time I heard it. I understand that people who think and talk like that exist, but not in my world. It's not something I hear a lot.

The way women are treated in general in this book is bothersome. Even Decker's partner, Detective Marge Dunn, is referred to as "little lady" constantly, and told to wait in the car while Decker does the dirty work, or pointedly ignored while "the men are talking". There are several references to "those women's libbers" as well. I'm trying really hard to put this in the context of when it was written, but it was published in 1990. And while I have no doubt this attitude was still present at the time, I don't recall it being quite as blatant as it is here.

(Side thought - The time the book was set was a little confusing to me. It was published in 1990 - is it set there, as well? It seemed to me that it was; there were beepers and pay phones, but also rotary phones at the station. If that's the case, given the fact that the Pete/Rina series is still being published, are all the books set in the early 90s? Or are they present day? Do Pete and Rina age in real time, or do they stay about where they are in this book while the world around them changes? I guess I won't know unless I keep reading, but Pete was born in 1950, so he'd be in his early 60s in 2013. That seems well past the standard 20 or 25 years most cops put in. But if Kellerman keeps him in his 40s, that would change a lot of the dynamic, since Pete's experiences in Vietnam had a huge impact in making him who he is, as they did everyone involved. And his caveman attitude would have to undergo some major changes in order for him to fit in in 2013.)

Pete's one saving grace to me is that by the end of the book, he seemed to realize that he has some anger issues and is a pig at times, and he seemed to want to make a genuine effort to change. That's the one reason I'll read at least one more in this series. I'll at least give him a chance to redeem himself.

The narration of this book was somewhat off-putting. Enough that I'll probably just read any more in this series, not listen to them, at least not if they're narrated by Mitch Greenberg. His reading of the main characters was fine, but all of the male side characters sounded like Rodney Dangerfield. Every one of them. Some times a straight Rodney, sometimes a hillbilly Rodney, sometimes a southern Rodney, but all of them sounded like Rodney. And there were several bizarre musical breaks in the audio. I have no idea what was happening with those. They weren't between chapters or scenes, or parts, and they weren't consistent. Suddenly I'd just be listening to 30-45 seconds of weird music, then back to the story.

Overall, I listened to this as fast as I could because I wanted to get through it and find out the answer to the murder mystery, but not because I was enjoying my listening experience. I'd recommend it only to people who really want to read this series, though.