Ich habe die Original-Ausgabe gelesen mit dem Titel "Justice".
Wer auch immer auf die pathetische deutsche Übersetzung davon kam, der Original-Titel passt.
This book is so completely different, both, different from the average crime series book, AND from the Decker/Lazarus series, that I even felt obliged to write about it differently.
First, skip the cover text. It tells you Detective Seargeant Pete Decker is called to investigate the murder of a high school student. True so, but this is not really what makes the book special AND different. Author Kellerman starts with the short scene of a memoir. Then you will get a very few pages of insight to the topical situation at home with the Deckers: there is an active rapist at loose in Columbia, where Decker’s 21-year-old daughter Cindy from his first marriage is studying. Off course, he is worried. But, completely unlike any other book in the series so far, Little else from the private lives of the Deckers‘, even less from their religious lives (the family are orthodox jews and I really appreciated highly in the books so far to learn from a world completely unknown to me before).
Instead, after this short preamble, the reader is in the middle of - what: a love story? A coming-of-age story, a typical US-High-School-story, the good but nerdy girl falls in love hopelessly with the bad but popular boy who does not notice her until he needs her…Yepp, I have seen this in movies quite a few times before, even if I am German (no high school round here, rather a number of different school types for secondary education, no prom queen, and we are allowed to drink any alcohol at age 18, beer or wine even younger – but get full driving permits only at 18…). Still that setup sometimes unnerved me: yes, I do understand falling in love completely, but I never got this Twilight = Shades of Grey thing where girls were willing to abide by any of the guy’s rules without ever thinking; just because it was “for love“ and go by living completely dependent on the fella. I bet the world is full of badly beaten up women and old ladies without an old age pension of their own (or girls going for it thinking he would pay for it all to the very end) due to that attitude.
So, I do get what it is that attracts the two kids, and then again – not at all. Too much of the aforementioned for me. Plus, that “I did not have sex with that woman“ – thing : “He began to explore my flesh, his left hand resting between my legs, fingertips inching into the pleads of my womanhood. …
It wasn’t sex but it was pretty damn close. An exquisite compromise that took us through the night.“ p 226 Nope, it does not get any more explicite, yes, they may NOT have had intercourse, but I just would not call that no sex either.
So, in general, the whole plot does have a dead person, some surprise murders (just read on) and a pretty unique setup and storyline, but I do not completely buy it. Judging by other reviews, you either love this or hate it, probably going by whether you get along with that type of love story or not.
3 stars. I will pick the next in the series.
