Faye Kellerman: The Lost Boys
I was a devout acolyte of Faye Kellerman’s early Decker and Lazarus books. The Ritual Bath (1986) is, to me, one of the greatest first mysteries ever. In it, Peter Decker, an LAPD detective, encounters the orthodox Jewish Rina Lazarus after a rape and murder at her neighborhood mikvah, or ritual bath. Improbably, the two eventually get married and the series, now 26 books long, is a strong one. The early books were marked by intensity of character discovery, intensity of violence, and Kellerman’s propulsive narrative skill.