The Hunt, Faye Kellerman

Faye Kellerman ended 2021's The Lost Boys with a bit of a cliffhanger. Peter and Rina Decker's foster son, Gabe Whitman, heard from his biological mother Terry -- she had been severely beaten and her son kidnapped. The only realistic help: Chris Donatti, Gabe's biological father and a former hitman who now owns a successful brothel. Also, Peter's partner Tyler McAdams has been pursuing leads in a missing person's case that had gone cold -- but he found a body, just before Peter and Rina were due to fly to Israel for two weeks. By the time the pair return, they've made the decision to move to Israel, but they'll need to help clear up both situations first. Kellerman's 27th Decker Lazarus novel, The Hunt, alternates between chapters spent searching for leads for the killer of the discovered dead woman and those spent on Donatti's efforts to both woo Terry and find out who has her son and how he can be rescued. "Woo" is a very loose term, though, as most of the interaction between the former lovers consists of Donatti demanding Terry come back into his life as the price of her son's rescue and their frequent (and frequently violent) sexual encounters. Hunt is a big, sprawling mess and if as several readers suggest it is a finale to the series, it's a lame one. Neither of the two plot lines offers any real energy or excitement. In the hunt for their killer, Peter and Tyler interview a few people and then spend pages spinning out possible theories for the crime -- which all prove to be wrong. Chris and Terry engage in dialogue that's repeated so many times you might wonder if Kellerman simply made a macro of it. The murder plot line provides no danger or real suspense as it unspools and the two detectives plod through it. And Chris and Terry's narrative features a relationship between two dysfunctional and not especially likable people that's so toxic it's simply impossible to believe it will succeed, . So when the diablo ex machina shows up to send everything of the rails it's certainly from an unexpected source-- but it doesn't have nearly enough substance or realism to surprise anyone that it happens. Almost every long series of novels runs out of steam when the author either doesn't have any more new ideas or the characters age to a time when further exploits would become unrealistic. It's just that, judging by The Hunt, the Decker/Lazarus series already did that before it came out.