Milk and Honey: A Decker/Lazarus Novel (Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Book 3)

Detective Peter Decker finds a toddler of about two years old roaming the streets of a housing development in the middle of the night with blood on her pajamas. While the blood doesn't appear to belong to the toddler, where did it come from and where are the child's parents. While trying to help this child, Peter is also dealing with an old military buddy and a mess he finds himself in, and trying to have a visit with Rina who has come to visit from New York. All three of these situations ways heavy on Peter and his mental frustrations are tested at every turn.

Although I'm a big fan of Faye Kellerman, I thought Milk and Honey, the third installment in the Decker/Lazarus series fell down in one area, and it made me suspect the quality of Kellerman's research in other areas.I'm a hobbyist beekeeper, and even though I'm not an expert on the subject the information on beekeeping in Milk and Honey is way off target. Without giving anything away, a 2-year-old child is found wandering around alone in a residential development, and what appears at first to be a rash on her arms leads Decker and other detectives to two families of beekeepers near L.A.At one point in the novel one of the characters, by banging on the hives, gets the honeybees from a number of different hives to fly out, join together and chase Pete Decker and his partner. The bees are described as flying out and coalescing in a big swarm that chase the detectives. This is ridiculous. Bees simply don't act that way. The only bees that might possibly act that way are Africanized bees, which were not in California in any numbers when this novel was written in 1990. Also, the bees are sometimes describing as "biting." Bees don't bite; the worker bees sting.There are many other little things in the novel that show Kellerman didn't do much if any research on beekeeping. First, I've rarely heard a beekeeper refer to a "honey farm." For one thing, in California in particular much of the money in beekeeping is in renting hives for pollination for almond growers and for growers of other nut and fruit trees; selling honey is often just a sideline to the real money in pollination and in selling nucs, live bees and queens to other beekeepers. For another, the professional beekeepers in the book are described as always wearing veils and gloves. Even very experienced beekeepers often do wear veils, because bees can fly into the orifices in one's face -- eyes, nose, mouth and eyes -- and sometimes other protective gear, but many if not most pros don't use gloves because it makes it more difficult for the beekeeper to work with hives without accidentally killing bees if their hands are covered in thick gloves.These are just a few of the bee facts in this novel that don't ring true to anyone who has spent time around bees or who has researched them.I understand that is a mystery novel, not a book on beekeeping, but the lack of good research in this area makes me wonder about in what other areas the research may be weak.

Detective Pete Decker finds a little girl on patrol one night, and in his quest to find out who she is and who she belongs to, uncovers a grisly quadruple murder scene.This is a tough review to write. The overall mystery involving the little girl and the murders was good, and the only real reason I kept listening. But, and this is a big one for me, Pete Decker is a pig. He's verbally abusive to his fiancee on several occasions, and treats her like she's a little girl. "You only talk to other men if I'm with you" "You can't handle my car, take the Jeep instead, it's easier to drive" and to another detective "Don't talk like that in front of my woman. She's too good to hear that language". It was ridiculous and really hard to read. Well, hear. There were a lot of characters portrayed as really backwoods, and the n-word was sprinkled liberally throughout the story, making me cringe every time I heard it. I understand that people who think and talk like that exist, but not in my world. It's not something I hear a lot.The way women are treated in general in this book is bothersome. Even Decker's partner, Detective Marge Dunn, is referred to as "little lady" constantly, and told to wait in the car while Decker does the dirty work, or pointedly ignored while "the men are talking". There are several references to "those women's libbers" as well. I'm trying really hard to put this in the context of when it was written, but it was published in 1990. And while I have no doubt this attitude was still present at the time, I don't recall it being quite as blatant as it is here.(Side thought - The time the book was set was a little confusing to me. It was published in 1990 - is it set there, as well? It seemed to me that it was; there were beepers and pay phones, but also rotary phones at the station. If that's the case, given the fact that the Pete/Rina series is still being published, are all the books set in the early 90s? Or are they present day? Do Pete and Rina age in real time, or do they stay about where they are in this book while the world around them changes? I guess I won't know unless I keep reading, but Pete was born in 1950, so he'd be in his early 60s in 2013. That seems well past the standard 20 or 25 years most cops put in. But if Kellerman keeps him in his 40s, that would change a lot of the dynamic, since Pete's experiences in Vietnam had a huge impact in making him who he is, as they did everyone involved. And his caveman attitude would have to undergo some major changes in order for him to fit in in 2013.)Pete's one saving grace to me is that by the end of the book, he seemed to realize that he has some anger issues and is a pig at times, and he seemed to want to make a genuine effort to change. That's the one reason I'll read at least one more in this series. I'll at least give him a chance to redeem himself.The narration of this book was somewhat off-putting. Enough that I'll probably just read any more in this series, not listen to them, at least not if they're narrated by Mitch Greenberg. His reading of the main characters was fine, but all of the male side characters sounded like Rodney Dangerfield. Every one of them. Some times a straight Rodney, sometimes a hillbilly Rodney, sometimes a southern Rodney, but all of them sounded like Rodney. And there were several bizarre musical breaks in the audio. I have no idea what was happening with those. They weren't between chapters or scenes, or parts, and they weren't consistent. Suddenly I'd just be listening to 30-45 seconds of weird music, then back to the story.Overall, I listened to this as fast as I could because I wanted to get through it and find out the answer to the murder mystery, but not because I was enjoying my listening experience. I'd recommend it only to people who really want to read this series, though.

A dear friend introduced me to this series by sending me a gift of book 1 and I have been reading one after another since. I love the series because the characters are deep and complex. In this book, Decker faces his experience in Viet Nam when he helps an old army buddy who is accused of raping and assaulting a prostitute. That, however, was a secondary plot. The main plot involved the murder of an entire family that left a toddler orphaned and Decker worked the case which was complicated and multi-layered with strange yet interesting characters I grew up in Southern California so I love anything written about the area though these books are dated (no cell phones, computers are relatively new, etc).In this book Decker and Rina make a commitment to one another and plan to marry which provides a ray of sunshine in an otherwise rather dark story.Though I think that any one of the Decker/Lazarus books can stand alone, I would recommend that a reader begin with book one. I am reading them in order and simply buy the next in the series as soon as I finish one.

Liked the Characters and the information on Jewish laws and customs

On to book four next Reading these stories is like catching up with old friends Have read later ones but not the very first ones

F. Kellerman: Milk and Honey.This book is a pleasant read and a well-plotted detective story. What bothers me, though, is that it does not leave any strong impression. The Vietnam episode does not seem organic in the book, and would need either more information or less pathos. No doubt the authoress relies on the readers’ knowledge of it from her previous books. But this may not be the case. She did not publish her titles as a consecutive series.Nice book to read, but difficult to remember.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

I am new to reading Faye Kellerman, so had to work a bit at her style of writing,I enjoyed the story once I had gotten to the part where I had an understanding of the back story.I think you need to read the previous books to this to understand the plot. It would be good if Ms. Kellerman would add a synopsis of her previous plots and then you would know to purchase the first part of the story line.On the whole this is a good author and I would buy her work again, In fact will do so. I am going to buy the previous works to fully comprehend the full plot of the characters in this book.