Street Dreams [Paperback]

Faye Kellerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 2004

When Cindy Decker finds a new-born baby in a rubbish bin, she can't imagine who would commit such a crime. Surely abandoning a baby is the biggest taboo of motherhood? The usual suspects - prostitutes, homeless women and drug abusers - aren't responsible. In fact, the culprit is a woman who appears almost as vulnerable as her own baby. As the case continues, Cindy realises she's in deep - her own life in danger - and there's only one person who can help, her father and boss, Lieutenant Peter Decker. They both know the key to a successful investigation is keeping a cool, professional head, but with a father and daughter detective team, can it ever be anything other than personal?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Kellerman's latest Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novel (after 2002's Stone Kiss) will please her fans, but is unlikely to make new converts. When Cindy Decker, Peter's LAPD officer daughter (who had a big role in 2000's Stalker), finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster, she sets out to track down the developmentally disabled mother, suspecting that the child may have been the product of a rape. Her fellow officers discourage her efforts, while an attempt on her life sparks conflict with an alarmed Peter. Romance occupies Cindy, an observant Jew, as much as her professional career. Conveniently, the sexy and caring black pediatric nurse who cares for the baby turns out to be an observant Ethiopian Jew who is instantly smitten with her. Other coincidences abound, including Cindy's witnessing of a fatal hit-and-run that may be connected with the sexual assault she alone believes occurred. A minor subplot concerning the murder of stepmother Rina's grandmother in 1920s Munich simply peters out. Details of Jewish religious observance amount to superficial trappings. Cindy mentions dealing with an earlier trauma through therapy, but the author never lets the reader in on any of her sessions. The solution to the crime comes almost as an afterthought in this overlong book. Others, and Kellerman herself, have done a better job of melding a mystery plot with the challenges of maintaining Jewish identity in the modern world.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Because Kellerman doesn't reprise history in her latest Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker mystery, readers new to the long-running series may find themselves frustrated by the allusions. But Decker family fans will speed through this solid whodunit, which is not only an entertaining puzzler but also takes the characters' relationships to a new level. Cindy, a rookie cop and Peter's 28-year-old daughter by his first marriage, takes center stage here. Both her rocky history with the department and with her dad come to the fore as she digs into the case of a developmentally disabled teenager who abandoned her baby, insists she was raped, and may have witnessed a murder. Following the strangely coincidental hit-and-run of another disabled teen from the same area, the case blossoms into a mystery that requires help from Peter and from Cindy's new boyfriend, an Ethiopian-born Jew who finds willowy, red-haired Cindy to be the girl of his dreams. The romance and the dialogue are a tad overdone ("you and me both, hot stuff"), but series fans won't be too concerned. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Headline Paperbacks (January 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747265356
• ISBN-13: 978-0747265351
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 1.3 x 7.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,100,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Faye Kellerman is the author of twenty-six novels, including nineteen New York Times bestselling mysteries that feature the husband-and-wife team of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. She has also penned two best selling short novels with her husband, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman, and recently has teamed up with her daughter, Aliza, to co-write a teen novel, entitled PRISM. She lives in Los Angeles, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I've been really disappointed...., September 22, 2003

By 

L. Quido "quidrock" (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Street Dreams (Hardcover)

in the way Kellerman had let this series meander in her last two outings "The Forgotten" and "Stone Kiss". Unlike many of the other readers I want to applaud this latest effort, picking up on Cindy Decker as the main character, and continuing her story from "Stalker".

It is true that if you haven't read the series, this book won't work for you. But like many patient readers of "series" mystery and thrillers, I get a little tired of the time and effort spent recapping the series for new readers. At some point, (and this is the 16th book in series), an author needs to cater to the fans that have been loyal enough to follow the series.....so, the action picks up without a lot of background noise on either Cindy or parents Peter/Rina -- a welcome relief.

Cindy's police work is supplemented this time by a much more realistic love story than her affair with a detective in "Stalker". Koby, the man she meets and falls in love with, is perhaps drawn too physically, but the sexual energy and attraction between them shines through, much like the early books portrayed the link between Peter and Rina. For once, Peter and Rina take a trip/vacation where there is no need for police work, and no family to "save" (thank goodness!)...their backdrop of searching for Rina's family past in Europe is a nice, humanistic setting for the primary story.

Cindy's got an interesting, realistic crime to solve, and there is some danger, along with a lot of help and advice from her father and Koby. The book moves rapidly, with the love and family stories seamlessly meshing with the police work.

If Kellerman can follow this book up with a winner, starring the new couple, she might be the first contemporary serial writer to successfully move her stories from one generation to another; an interesting accomplishment.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars EMPTY STREETS, November 24, 2003

By 

Michael Butts (Berkeley Springs, WV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Street Dreams (Hardcover)

In this latest installment of the Decker family series, Kellerman commits a grave sin as far as good mystery writers go: there is little, if any, suspense, and she sacrifices the mystery by focusing on two plots that go absolutely nowhere.
The focus in this novel is on Peter's daughter, Cindy, who continues to be a non-interesting, hardly likeable character. She continues to resent teamwork, and now she finds herself madly in love with an Ethiopian Jew. A disarmingly handsome nurse who helps her out when she finds the abandoned baby. Again, Kellerman lets her religious fervor dominate. What's odd about this particular romance is that obviously from Koby's own words, his relationship with Cindy is primarily physical. He wants to have sex with her all the time; he also has dark moods that are never truly explained or resolved. Combining the racial and religious problems fails to enliven this meandering romance.
Then we have this other plot where Rina is investigating the murder of her grandmother in 1930's Poland. She goes all out to discover the truth, but when the novel ends, we have no further understanding of what really happened.
And perhaps the biggest disappointment is that even after the child abandonment, the hit and run, etc., the killers are characters who have had little time in the novel. So who can really care?
I have read all of the series now and still maintain that "love/hate" relationship with Kellerman's books. She might be better off just writing family tales of the usual marital and romantic woes, than trying to slide a mystery in.
Not the best of her series in the long run.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read, September 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Street Dreams (Hardcover)

I couldn't put this book down!Although I agree with the booklist review that the mystery was almost secondary, as a long-time Kellerman fan I loved meeting the new character of Koby and I was as interested in that as I was the mystery. I thought it was great to learn more about Cindy too and now I want to go back and re-read Stalker.