Peter Decker

Peter Decker is a fictional Los Angeles police lieutenant in a series of mystery novels by Faye Kellerman. Decker is assisted in solving crimes by his Orthodox Jewish wife Rina Lazarus.

When he meets Rina, a young widow, during an investigation at a yeshiva in "The Ritual Bath," he is compelled to explore the religion for himself and eventually to become a religiously observant Orthodox Jew. Decker, though raised Baptist by his adoptive parents in Florida, discovers as an adult that his birth parents were Jewish, which makes him Jewish under traditional Jewish religious law as well. All the books in the series are rooted in, or at least include, Jewish themes.

Major characters in the books include Rina's two sons by her late husband, Jacob and Samuel Lazarus; Cindy Decker, Peter's daughter from his first marriage; Rina and Peter's daughter Hannah Decker; and Peter's police partner Detective Marge Dunn. Decker's daughter from his first marriage, Cindy Decker, a teenager in the earliest books, eventually follows her father into the police force and is the main character of two of the later books, "Stalker" and "Street Dreams."

Novels in the series

* "The Ritual Bath" (1986),
* "Sacred and Profane" (1987),
* "Milk and Honey" (1990),
* "Day of Atonement" (1991),
* "False Prophet" (1992),
* "Grievous Sin" (1993),
* "Sanctuary" (1994),
* "Justice," (1995),
* "Prayers for the Dead" (1996),
* "Serpent's Tooth" (1997),
* "Jupiter's Bones" (1999),
* "Stalker" (2000),
* "The Forgotten" (2001),
* "Stone Kiss" (2002), and
* "Street Dreams" (2003).