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An Hispanic receptionist, a registered nurse and a medical doctor, are found in their office shot to death. Jessie Drake and her partner Paul are assigned to the case. They must first discover who is the intended victim, (nothing points to robbery), and then investigate why and who is the murderer. The way in which one of the victims was shot would indicate that this was a crime of revenge and the other victims were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jessie has recently become interested in her Jewish roots and in the practice of her faith. In fact she has started taking lessons on Talmud; she has started to keep Sabbath and to begin to keep Kosher. During the course of the investigation it is discovered that a member of the family of the chief victim was half Jewish. Her knowledge of the Jewish faith and customs provides some very important information in this part of the investigation. This is, in my opinion, a character driven novel. I am a fan of such novels; in fact if the characters are not well drawn it can decrease my pleasure in reading a book. Krich does an excellent job building her characters. Police procedure takes a back seat with this author even though her heroine is a homicide detective for the Los Angeles Police Department. I found the information about Jewish faith and practices fascinating; however, the story itself was all over the place. Jessie is constantly changing her mind about whom she feels is the perpetrator and off she goes after him or her, only to change her mind and charge madly after another. In fact, at one point her Captain tells her she can't have it all ways; she must get some organization. Additionally, she hints throughout that her sister had had problems with motherhood, but never really reveals what, and there is a third leitmotif involving her family that runs through the much novel without adding much to the plot. The ending is very dramatic, but contrived.
Reviewed by Martha Hopkins, August 2002
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