I was one of the original Faye Kellerman fans, starting with her first novels, The Ritual Bath and Sacred and Profane, and continuing through a half dozen or more Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus adventures. Then somehow I strayed away, pursuing other mystery series. It has been a pleasure returning to Kellerman with her 2007 novel, The Burnt House.
The crash of a commuter plane into an apartment building kills everyone aboard and several residents and triggers not one but two murder investigations. That the two murders are somehow related seems like a stretch, but otherwise this is a first-rate police procedural.
The airline can't seem to decide whether a flight attendant named Roseanne Dresden was aboard the doomed flight or not. She was not assigned to the flight and did not have a ticket, but she may have gotten aboard anyway. Her husband, Ivan, says she was aboard and wants to collect her insurance money. Her father, however, insists she was not aboard and that Ivan killed her, using the crash as a cover.
One unidentified body is found at the crash scene, but it is not Roseanne's. Rather it is that of a young woman who was apparently murdered in the 1970s.
Lieutenant Peter Decker and his team have their hands full with one murder and one missing person to deal with, and these two parallel investigations are absorbing to follow. There is little for Rina to do this time, other than to be a sweet Jewish wife and mother. Decker works such long hours that he doesn't even get home much. Rina does come through at the end, however, to resolve one last remaining problem.
All in all, The Burnt House is a fine murder mystery, leaving me eager to read some of the other unread Kellerman novels that have been piling up.
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