About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

DREAM HOUSE
by Rochelle Krich
Ballantine, September 2003
337 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 034544972X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Molly Blume, writer of true crime and a newspaper column on the crime scene, is back in her second mystery from Rochelle Krich. Molly is a practicing Orthodox Jew and her religion and her family are a very big part of who she is. The return of an former beau, who dumped her when they were teenagers, and who is now a rabbi appears very interested in rekindling their relationship. Molly worries whether her skirts are too short and is also uncomfortable with the fact that Zach is the rabbi at the synagogue her ex-husband attends.

But Molly doesn't have much time for dwelling on her personal life as she begins to see a pattern involved when houses of residents are vandalized and she becomes familiar with the rather controversial HARP (Historic Architectural Restoration and Preservation) Boards which are in effect in many of the Los Angeles neighborhoods to preserve the older buildings. Many people are very angry about the restrictions placed on what they can and can't do with their own property.

Molly becomes more deeply involved in the controversy when she picks up an old man, obviously suffering from Alzheimer's. When she delivers him to the house that he says is his, she discovers that he no longer lives there and that his daughter, married to the head of a large construction business, disappeared three months earlier. There was blood in the bedroom, but neither the woman nor her body has been discovered.

When the husband asks Molly to investigate she becomes embroiled with the various factions in the hotly debated issue. The stringent rules of HARP are driving some people to bankruptcy and are no help to the big construction companies. Krich gives both sides of the story so one group never becomes "the bad guys."

When the old man, a well-known professor of architecture is found dead after a fire starts in the "old" house, Molly finds a tape that is allegedly from his missing daughter asking him to meet her there.

Embezzlement schemes, fanatics on both sides of the issue as well as the husband of the missing woman provide plenty of suspects, but Molly is not deterred in her search for what could be a double murderer even if she comes close to being the third victim.

DREAM HOUSE is a marvelous book by a writer who deserves a much larger audience for her well-written books that abound with fascinating and well-drawn characters as well as outstanding plotting which is complex, but never convoluted.

The "inside" look at Orthodox Judaism is a bonus to readers, no matter what their religious beliefs. My recommendation? Buy this book as soon as it is published.

Reviewed by Doris Ann Norris, July 2003

This book has more than one review. Click here to show all.

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]