A Jewish shul has been robbed & vandalised with nazi slogans and symbols, and the place littered with real photographs of the dead and dying in a wartime concentration camp. This shul, although small and by no means wealthy, means a lot to its congregation - members of which are Lieutenant Peter Decker and his family. Initial investigations lead you to the door of the Preservers of Ethnic Integrity, a possible Nazi group. Further investigations lead to friends of Decker's own stepson.

What starts off being a simple vandalism turns into multiple murders, with motives dating back to the odd family history of a could-be ex-nazi family.

You know straight off who did the main crime so that is not the issue but as the story develops and people are being killed you have to work out why and by whom.

Throughout the book, you learn so much about the lives of Orthodox Jews and the problems they face as they go about their everyday lives in California, although this is not something that is too heavy and deep. At one point Rina goes to visit an old man of about 80/90 years old who survived the holocaust, I really felt for this man, it brought him such pain to think about it that he did not care to discuss with Rina what he remembered.

As far a police procedures go, to an untrained mind, the book seems to have everything down to a tee - nothing appears out of the ordinary. The investigation procedures seem real and you can follow along trying to work out the motives and who is behind everything along with the cops - most of whom were in the previous book I read so there must be quite a series of books with the same characters.

The story is well written and reads easily. The only problem I had was when something was mentioned about what happened to Jacob when he was younger - it came out of the blue and was obviously something that had been covered in a previous book, and therefore wasn't really explained in this book. A
t the first mention it just left it hanging there although as the story progresses and you hear more about it it makes a bit more sense. Other than that there is no previous story you need to know about to read this book and enjoy it.

This is only the second of Faye Kellerman's books I have read and I have thoroughly enjoyed them both, now to start at the beginning and go back and read the rest of the series!

The Forgotten is by Faye Kellerman (wife of the famous Jonathan Kellerman, a favourite author of mine!) and it published in paperback by headline. It is marked as £5.99 but I picked it up in either Woolworths or Tesco for £3.99 - which is what makes it even better!! :0)