You'll just be burning to read some more (The Burnt House - Faye Kellerman)

Member Name: rune_tune

Product:	The Burnt House - Faye Kellerman
Date:	09/09/08 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An excellent paced read .

Disadvantages: A little too much on one subject .

The Burnt House By Faye Kellerman.

~ About the Author ~

Faye Kellerman was born in Missouri but grew up in California. She earned a BA in Mathematics, as well as gaining a doctorate in dentistry. Her first novel was produced in 1986, and since then she has become one of the best-known female crime writers out there.
One of her novels - Prayers for the dead - Was listed by the LA Times as one of the best crime novels of 2001.
The Burnt House is a book that revisits the already known relationship of Detective Peter Decker, and his wife Rina.

Faye is also married to the author Jonathon Kellerman, and she continues to live in LA, California with their youngest child.

~ Synopsis of the book ~

Peter Decker is getting ready to go to work, when he hears of an accident in the Burbank district. To begin with he isn't sure what the situation is, but is horrified to hear that a small commuter plane, with 47 passengers on board - has crashed shortly after take off.
His fear is compounded when he and his wife realize the crash site is very close to where his youngest daughter is at school.
He rushes to the scene, stopping off to help his wife pick up their daughter on the way and finds carnage and chaos greets him.
As they begin to recover the wreckage and the bodies of those who died, not only in the plane but also on the ground, Peter gets a phone call from someone who claims that his daughter Roseanne Dresden wasn't on the plane as listed in the passenger listings given, but had been killed by her husband who was now using the crash as an excuse for her disappearance.

Initially Peter is sceptical, but he does decide to investigate because the missing woman is actually a stewardess who works for the airline. However, its soon apparent she wasn't working that shift, so could there be another reason for her being on the plane? And why is the airline, West Air, being so obstructive when they are trying to track Roseanne's movements.
Initially the passenger list as given by the papers does have Roseanne listed, but as Peter looks closer, he finds that her name wasn't initially given anywhere.
But, Peter is prepared to wait and see what happens. Already they have some identified bodies from the crash site that they found weren't on the main passenger list, but all were for expected reasons - A young child who wouldn't have been listed for example.
Could it be Roseanne had simply hitched a ride without a ticket?

Then, just as they are finishing the clear up of bodies, the remains of a woman are found. Just as Peter thinks this will help close his case, it dramatically opens up a whole new one when the coroner informs him this body, while that of a woman, is in fact much older than the crash!
Just as he is beginning to investigate this case, new evidence has been appearing that links Roseanne to a man in San Jose, with whom she had a brief affair, but by all accounts had she had ended the relationship 6 months earlier. Why then when they begin to track her movements, her last known location was San Jose the night before the crash?

Eventually the mysteries begin to make some sort of sense, but what Decker and his team don't expect is a twist that suddenly brings the two cases much closer together than they could have imagined.

~ Thoughts of the book ~

Although I had heard of Faye Kellerman, and often seen her books for sale - this was part of the Asda buy two books for £3-00 deal. So an ideal opportunity to try her out and see how I got on.
First, the complaint - and that is while I've got nothing against showing someone's beliefs as I read about them, I found the constant references to Judaism right the way through the book unnecessary and frankly boring! I ended up skimming through most of it when it appeared. Why? I can understand when a writer focuses on a hobby, or a part of someone's life to help round him or her off as a character, but this constant reference baffles me. I see no need for it, whether it is because of religion or otherwise. I enjoy getting a small amount, but by the end I was thinking enough! I know you are Jewish. I know you find it important in your life - I get that! You've told me so many times already! Move on.........

And that really is the worst thing I can say about the book - which in itself, while frustrating certainly isn't enough for me to think its worthy of less than 5 stars.
Now, while the writing isn't as technically driven as some writers of the genre out there, I did enjoy getting to know more about the principle characters who are involved in solving the crimes.

I found to my surprise that I had read far more of the book when I first sat down to read than I had realized, and that is because it is nicely paced, as both a thriller and as a character developer, with both being nicely blended to make the book work. There is no real let up in the pace as it twists and turns through the clues, and action keeps on coming, sometimes from unexpected quarters, leaving those trying to work out the case struggling to understand it all, and giving the reader another red herring to deal with.
At times, coincidence was a little too contrived, plausibility has to be suspended a little more than usual, but because it manages to stay focused, it meant I still enjoyed the story ideas right the way through.

Now I mention straight away how the involvement of the Jewish religion is peppered through the book, and just too much for my liking. But by the same token, I can understand why it has happened, and in principle I've got nothing against this. In contrast, later in the book we get an insight into Native America culture and belief and that is just a nice amount for us to gain this awareness, but without it being too much and so we lose interest. I wish the Jewish angle had been treated in a similar manner - and then the book would have worked even more strongly in my opinion.

~ Final thoughts on the book ~

To summarize, this book the characters, both main and secondary, are excellently written. The scenes are vivid enough to really bring them to life, but not to such a degree where you are floundering in too much descriptive writing. Information wasn't all that it seemed, and twists and turns were abound, and I was surprised to work out who the villain was much later in the book than I had initially anticipated I would do, so another excellent plus point from me.
I like the mix of normality, confusion and puzzles that surround this book. This book is a delight because it does make it difficult to solve it all before the writer is ready to show you whodunit, and that is one reason I rated this book so highly. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting as much information about the normal family background given, and usually I find this a distraction from a crime novel, but in this instance I found it enhanced it for me - I suppose the closest I can liken it to in the UK is someone like Wexford.

Overall, I'm happy to give the book 5 out of 5 stars; even with the minor grips I have over some things. It's not enough to really pull the whole level of the writing down a full star - I would prefer 4 and a half, but since we can't give a half value, 5 will have to do.

~ Availability and prices ~

As mentioned this was available from Asda in the last couple of weeks (Late August 2008) as part of their, books for £2-00 each, or 2 books for £3-00 deal.
I've seen them available in various other retailers and prices do seem to vary between £2-00 and £5-00 depending on where you buy.
ISBN-10: 0007243227
ISBN-13: 978-0007243228

Also my review on Ciao.

Summary: A much better book than I expected. Reminds me of The Wexford mysteries.