Milk and Honey

By: Faye Kellerman

Narrated by: Mitchell Greenberg

Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

In the silent pre-dawn city hours - alone with his thoughts about Rina Lazarus, the woman he loves, 3,000 miles away in New York - L.A.P.D. detective Peter Decker finds a small child, abandoned and covered in blood that is not his. It is a sobering discovery, and a perplexing one, for nobody in the development where she was found steps forward to claim the little girl. Obsessed more deeply by this case than he imagined possible, Decker is determined to follow the scant clues to an answer.

But his trail is leading him to a killing ground where four bodies lie still and lifeless. And by the time Rina returns, Peter Decker is already held fast in a sticky mass of hatred, passion, and murder - in a world where intense sweetness is accompanied by a deadly sting.

©1990 Faye Kellerman (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers

Please stop the music between chapters!

I love this series and the relationship between Decker and Lazarus and I am learning a lot about this side of the Jewish religion. But when listening to the audio book, why is it necessary to have music between chapters? i read before bed and each time it comes on, it jars me to full conscientiousness. Not relaxing!

Now I Remember Why I Don't Care for these Books

The premise of the book is interesting. The characters are somewhat likable. But, I didn't care for it.
In LA, the Detective Peter Decker is driving at night and finds a toddler swinging on a swing set. Her pajamas are covered in blood and since she seems to be healthy (even laughing), it's clearly not hers. And it's a lot of blood--someone is hurt bad. Or dead.
The case take Decker and his partner Marge Dunn to a family of beekeepers and a house loaded with putrefying corpses. Shotguns make a terrible mess and this crime scene is no exception.
At the same time, an army buddy from Vietnam is accused of violent rape and asks for Decker's help. Decker tries to get to the bottom of this as well as solve the beekeeper murders.
The plot is full of twists and turns and the killer(s) are/is only revealed in the last 15 minutes of the book. Kinda took me by surprise and I can usually figure out the killers in most novels fairly quickly.
OK. So why do I not care for the book?
It's a personal thing, really. I'm really turned off by the excessive use of the F-word. And believe me, that word (along with other curse words) is used liberally. But, even that was not the straw that broke the camel's back.
Faye Kellerman claims to be an orthodox Jew, yet the characters in her books use God's name in a most vulgar way throughout her novels. This is not something that most orthodox Jews would do.
The characters also use "Christ" & "Jesus" in the same way. I have known orthodox Jews (and some not so orthodox) for years, and they simply would not use Christ's name in this way. Any religious person, Jewish or Christian, wouldn't use God's name in such a derisive way. That's a big taboo in the Orthodox community. I'm not talking Hasidic, just orthodox.
I've read Kellerman's books before and always didn't pick up another because of this reason. After a couple of years, I'd pick up another and would be reminded as why I'm not particularly fond of the author or her books, even if they are otherwise well written.
It's a shame.

Enjoyable

I liked this installment in the series, even though some of the writing, when spoken aloud, was awkward, e.g., "he said" repeated for an entire scene. I'm surprised an editor didn't catch it. Also, I would have liked to have heard more Rina in the book. Otherwise it was a fun, entertaining book. The narrator was terrific.

Great book

Really liking this book Ceres I like the characters And I like the stories Can't wait to listen to the next one

Too much Hard to Take

There were parts of this book that I really did not like. The violence was unacceptable. The narration was superb.

it was a really good read

this is my fourth reading the book I than the rest of the series I think it a good Reed

Tedious

I didn't look closely and purchased this book because I thought it was new one in the series, but it is actually very old. I think the reader is terrible - I don't know if I will even finish listening. The combination of a slow moving plot and a monotonous reader make the whole book seem tedious. I have enjoyed the later books in this series, but this one is not worth the money.

Milk and Honey

I dislike the irritating sexual context, the wunbelievably poor conversation between the characters , and the strange inflections of the reader.

I don't recommend this book

It is full of unnecessary racist and sexist comments. That spoiled the book for me.

Just not a Faye Kellerman fan...

I love the character "Decker" but this book dragged on. I kept listening just to try to get my money's worth. Very boring. I think this is the second Faye Kellerman's book that I've disliked.