The Ritual Bath was pretty much a washout. A brutal rape occurs in the local Jewish community shocking the residents who are use to a certain amount of vandalism or anti-Semitism, but not to this level of violence. Police detective Peter Decker is assigned the case, but soon becomes personally involved as he falls in love with one of the witnesses, Rina Lazarus, who may also be the rapist next victim.

The Ritual Bath is the first in a long established series of mystery novels involving Peter Decker, a homicide detective, and his ladylove, Rina Lazarus. I'd heard good things about this series and decided to give it a try, but I'm afraid The Ritual Bath didn't really impress me. In places The Ritual Bath wanted to be a straightforward mystery novel and in others it seemed to trying to work as a police procedural, but it never came across as particularly strong as either. As a mystery the puzzle wasn't very difficult; nor was there enough detail regarding police routine for it to stand as a procedural. The main characters, Decker and Lazarus, were well written, but the supporting characters did not come across as well. The police characters surrounding Decker were somewhat one dimensional like actors in a role they had not quite made their own yet. The life of an orthodox Jew was given in wonderful detail, but the Jewish characters, other then Lazarus, were unsympathetic coming off either as arrogant, bigoted or both. Even the local Rabbi, who at first seemed an extremely decent person, tells Rina that she should not become involved with Decker because there is no place in their community for a "goy". Jews, like everyone else in real life, run the gamut in terms of human nature from person to person, but in The Ritual Bath almost every Jewish character seemed to share the same unpleasant trait of intolerance to some extent or another. The most interesting aspect of The Ritual Bath was the developing romantic relationship between Decker, who was raised as a Baptist, and Lazarus, a strictly orthodox Jew. Her faith prohibits their union, but their feelings are too strong to be ignored. The resolution to a their dilemma is designed to play out over the length of the series, but a twist at the end of The Ritual Bath gives an indication of the direction their relationship will take.

It could be that the series will improve after the first book, something that often happens in a series, but while I'm willing to try a couple more to find out I'd personally need to see some improvement pretty quickly to stick with the series.

Grade: C

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