The Hunt by Faye Kellerman
Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus, #27
Published: Aug. 23, 2022 – Wm Morrow
Book courtesy of the publisher
Publisher description:
Detective Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus return to Los Angeles when a kidnapping hits close to home—in this breathtaking new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Faye Kellerman.
Peter and his partner, Detective Tyler McAdams, are thrown into an unsolved case and propelled into action when a body is found in the very woods where a man previously went missing in upstate New York.
But that’s not the only crisis that Peter has to deal with.
Teresa McLaughlin, the biological mother of Peter and his wife Rina’s foster son, Gabe, has fled to Los Angeles with her two children in tow, hoping to avoid a court injunction amid a messy divorce. But LA is no escape from her problems—she is found by ruthless men and beaten mercilessly. When she wakes, barely conscious, Teresa discovers that both of her children are gone and frantically calls Gabe for help.
With his mother on the verge of death, Gabe contacts Peter and Rina, as well as his biological father, the notorious Christopher Donatti, a former hit man from a known criminal family who’s now a millionaire in Nevada. By bringing Donatti into the fray, Gabe, Peter, and Rina know they have made a deal with the devil—but they may not be able to recover the kids without him.
As these unlikely allies rally to find the kidnappers before things end tragically, they race headlong toward an explosive confrontation from which no one will emerge unscathed…
My take: I admit going into the series at this point is not optimal but I figured the author would catch me up with pertinent information on the main characters. Faye Kellerman did a great job with that as far as I could tell. We have the warm and loving Decker/Lazarus family contrasted with the Donatti family who are the epitome of disfunction and a world of hedonistic proclivities (described in detail). Their storylines occasionally crossed during the book but were mostly separate. I thought that played out in an unnecessarily long, drawn-out book (almost 500 pages). I won’t go more into the plot than the description does. I think fans of the series will want to see how Kellerman wraps things up but for me it just wasn’t the read I’d hoped for.
Bookfan 