The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman

The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman

Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD is stunned when he gets the report. Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed.

The crime was called in by Rina Lazarus, and Decker is relieved to discover that she is a calm and intelligent witness. She is also the only one in the sheltered community willing to speak of this unspeakable violation. As Rina tries to steer Decker through the maze of religious laws, the two grow closer. But before they get to the bottom of this horrendous crime, revelations come to light that are so shocking, they threaten to come between the hard-nosed cop and the deeply religious woman with whom he has become irrevocably linked.

Faye Kellerman is the author of the #1 Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series, Moon Music, a New York Times bestselling thriller, and The Quality of Mercy, a historical fiction. The Ritual Bath, her first novel, won the Macavity Award for Best First Novel. Her books are currently in print in over twenty million copies around the world. She has also published several collections of short stories that have received critical acclaim. With her husband, Jonathan Kellerman, and their children, she splits her time between Los Angeles and Santa Fe.