“Gun Games” is Faye Kellerman’s 23rd Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus mystery. I have been a huge fan of the series since the first book “Ritual Bath”, but “Gun Games” is in a part a disappointment. The weak portion of the novel involves the character of fifteen year old Gabriel Whitman. Gabe is the son of gangster Chris Whitman Donatti, who first appeared in the Decker/Lazarus story “Justice” back in 1995.
Gabe’s mother, Terry, has run off with her lover to India. Gabe’s father, Donatti, is in Nevada overseeing his chain of bordellos. Police lieutenant, Peter Decker, and his wife, Rina Lazarus, agree to foster Gabe until he leaves for Juilliard. (Gabe is a piano prodigy.) Gabe meets and falls in love with a fourteen year old Jewish girl whose parents are from Iran. Gabe’s young love, Jasmine, cannot tell her parents that she is seeing a white Catholic boy. So they text constantly and meet secretly at the Coffee Bean. Romeo/Juliet relationships are the basis of many good (sometimes great) novels, but this one just does not ring true.
The dialogue between Gabe and Yasmine, whether it’s by text or in person, seems very forced and unnatural. Do teenagers really say “I adore you” or “What’s wrong, my love”? The characters of Gabe and Yasmine don’t seem real. I found myself not caring about either one of them. The relationship between Gabe’s parents, damaged bad boy Chris Whitman Donatti, and bookish good girl, Terry McLaughlin, first seen in Kellerman’s novel “Justice” in 1995, is much more interesting. Even though he only has a small part in “Gun Games”, 30 something Chris Whitman Donatti leaps off the page. As already mentioned, I can’t say the same about his son, Gabe.
The other plot, which concerns two suicides at an exclusive Los Angeles prep school, is considerably more suspenseful. The mother of the first victim, Gregory Hesse, does not believe her son could have committed suicide. She asks police lieutenant, Peter Decker, to look into the case. When another student from the same school takes her life six weeks later, and it is discovered that both suicides used stolen guns, the plot, as they say, thickens. Decker and his team unearth some very unpleasant teens who are running the show at their prep school Bell and Wakefield. These young bullies are much more faithful to life than Gabe and Yasmine.
“Gun Games” would be a much better mystery if Faye Kellerman had only concentrated on the teen suicides and the characters of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. She should stick to what she does best and leave the teen romance to writers like Judy Blume.
I actually could relate to the Gabe and Yasmine relationship. They were young and stupid. Younger than Chris and Terry but no less hormonal. Never underestimate the hormones of teenagers. I teach and I have seen more teen pregnancies than I wish and sadder still is when it befalls the supposedly clever and level headed ones. And yes Romeo and a Juliet were even younger.
ReplyDeleteDDo you know if they survive to adulthood as a couple?