In Moon Music Faye Kellerman turns her attention from the streets of Los Angeles, where her previous novels were set, to the casinos of Las Vegas. A mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in the desert and Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe sets out to determine who could have committed the murder and the brutal desecration that followed. His team of investigators include the tall and lusty Steve Jensen, novice Patricia Deluca, and medical examiner Rukmani Kalil. The relations between the four are complex and add depth to this tale of deadly dealings: Poe carries a torch for Jensen's mentally troubled wife and knows of his colleague's philandering; Kalil and Poe are engaged in an off-again, on-again affair. Although collectively they feel as though they are making progress in the case, another similarly mutilated corpse is found within a matter of weeks, turning the mystery from that of a peculiarly brutal murder in the singular to the search for a serial killer.

It's a tight, tense read. Kellerman engages the reader with her carefully wrought characters and with her sense of place. Las Vegas not only sets the stage for the story but is central to it. The seeds of the crime were planted in its small town past as a nuclear test sight and only reach their fruition in the gambling and selling of sex and drugs in the present. Kellerman ties it all together beautifully, with extraordinary hints of Native American mysticism and government conspiracies. In another's hands, such flights of fancy would verge on the ridiculous, but Kellerman manages to keep her fantastic plots well under control. For those with a strong stomach and an imaginative streak, Moon Music is a captivating thriller. --K.A. Crouch

From Publishers Weekly
In leaving behind LAPD detective Peter Decker and his wife, Rina Lazarus (last seen in Serpent's Tooth, 1997), for this Las Vegas mystery, Kellerman unfortunately also abandoned the warmth and depth of characterization that mark her series' books. Featuring Las Vegas homicide cop, Romulus Poe, in the murder investigation of two prostitutes, this tale also trades in the series' foundation in religion (Orthodox Judaism) for sensational pseudo-scientific and/or supernatural suggestions of lycanthropy. The first prostitute whose badly mutilated corpse is found in the desert was the onetime mistress of Poe's fellow cop Steve Jenkins. That complication exacerbates the two cops' already strained relationship: Poe and Jenkins's wife, Alison, who were high-school lovers, still harbor feelings of attachment. Alison's mental and emotional instability figure large in the narrative, which also involves the above-ground testing of atomic bombs at the Nevada Test Site when Poe and his twin brother, Remus, were infants. (The boys' growth was severely stunted; Remus, the first to be treated with growth hormone, became a seven-foot giant; Rom, treated less aggressively, achieved a normal height). Alison, a teenager when her mother died under suspicious circumstances, may also have been affected by radiation fallout. More deaths and mutilations lead to a climactic action scene at the Test Site, but it and the sketchy resolution are no more convincing than the dialogue, the characterization or the plot in this neon-lit disappointment from a writer capable of much better work. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Best-selling author Kellerman turns to the gritty underside of Las Vegas for her latest venture into crime fiction. Moon Music marks the debut of Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe, in charge of investigating the gruesome death of a showgirl turned hooker. The case reminds Poe of a brutal, unsolved murder 25 years in his own past and brings up his unresolved feelings for his partner's troubled wife. When a second, similarly mutilated body is found, Poe and his team must uncover the truth, even if it involves confronting a powerful, corrupt casino owner. Kellerman's characters have complex interrelationships that often seem more important than the murder investigation itself. Perhaps not as compelling or appealing as her Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series (Prayers for the Dead, LJ 8/96) but still a safe bet for most public libraries.-?Laurel Bliss, New Haven, CTCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


"Mrs. Kellerman is taking a big risk here, and I think she pulls it off in fine style."

From Kirkus Reviews
And now for something completely different from the creator of LAPD detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus (Serpent's Tooth, 1997, etc.). It isn't just that the story's set in Las Vegas, perhaps the only American city with a lower reality quotient than L.A., or that the lead detectivesMetro Homicide Sgt. Romulus Poe and Det. Stephen Jensenare more concerned with their next sexual encounter than their status as pillars of the community; the real difference is the case itself. It begins with the discovery of ex-casino dancer Brittany Newel, drugged and tortured to death, on the edge of the desert. The showgirl's murder points both backward to the so-called Phantom killing of teacher's aide Janet Doward 25 years ago, and forward to a new and grisly series of slaughters. Even though Poe has a reputation as a crackerjack veteran, and his loyal (albeit sorely tried) girlfriend Dr. Rukmani Kalil is the deputy coroner, Kellerman is less interested in orthodox detective work than in multiplying dread suspicions (the untouchable Vegas player, the whispered demands for underaged girls, the horrific legacy of nuclear testing) and staging telemovie tableaux (after-hours meetings with a knowing prostitute, shoving matches with casino muscle, disappearances sooner or later of most every available female cast member). Less like Kellerman's usual fare than like an X-Files episode on mutant lycanthropy. Decker/Lazarus fans may take heart, or take warning. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


"Fascinating...Fast-paced and dynamic...."

Book Description
In the bleak wasteland of the Nevada desert, not far from the sparkling, 24-hour neon of the world famous Las Vegas Strip, the body of a once-beautiiful showgirl is discovered, horribly mauled and mutilated. It is a horrendous crime, shocking in its brutality, excessive even for a city celebrated for its excess. Seasoned police veteran and Vegas native Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe has seen his fair share of depravity in this mecca of glitz and vice. But there is something about this unfortunate young woman's death -- and in a similar murder that is to follow soon after -- that harkens back to an unsolved slaying and so-called suicide a quarter-century ago. The grim similarities -- along with some frightening new possibilities -- are leading Poe into a night world of dark shadows best left unilluminated..and pulling the inquisitive policeman toward secrets from a strange and sordid past that could destroy those closest to him, and drag him over the edge.

About the Author
Faye Kellerman introduced L.A. cop Peter Decker and his wife, Rina Lazarus, to the mystery world fifteen years ago. Since then she has published twelve Decker/Lazarus novels, the most recent being the New York Times bestseller Stalker. She is also the author of Moon Music, a contemporary thriller set in Las Vegas, and The Quality of Mercy, a historical novel of Elizabethan England. Kellerman lives in California with her husband, noted author Jonathan Kellerman, and their four children, three dogs, and fish too numerous to count.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
A lot of reviewers have noted lately that too many bestselling writers are writing the same book over and over again. Nobody is ever going to accuse Faye Kellerman of that. Not after this book.

Her new novel Moon Music is not only the best book she's ever written, it's also one of this year's most unique and riveting reads, a mystery that contains elements of horror, metaphysics, and Native American culture.

The novel is way too complex to outline coherently, so let's just say that while it starts out not unlike a police procedural, involving the murder of a mutilated Las Vegas prostitute, it is filled with the faint, echoing cries of a shadowy netherworld that Kellerman makes perfectly believable. That netherworld, Kellerman is saying, is there for all of us to see — if we just know how to look. She finds evidence of it in some mighty strange and disturbing places, for the murdered woman leads detective Romulus Poe to learn that she was once the mistress of one of his colleagues, and the killing also seems to have some bearing on a much older murder. Complicating things is Poe's relationship with his police colleague's wife — she and Poe were once lovers. Thus, there are two powerful story lines operating here — the police investigation through seedy Las Vegas, and Poe's look back at his own troubled life. Kellerman dovetails these plotlines skillfully.

The setup reminds me a bit of Richard Matheson's brilliant Las Vegas vampire story The Night Stalker, the Vegas atmosphere, with its sociological climate, offering the author a perfect opportunity tomixdrama with sly humor. Her detective Poe has a unique take on his city. And on himself. Kellerman is a master of the sly aside, and she's never been nimbler:

Poe watched as she bounced toward the office. His groin was still fixated on her ass. But his mind was elsewhere — thinking about the claws of a possessed woman, a howling coyote with doleful eyes, and a rattler with a bite as painful of rejection.

Poe, as the last image implies, can tell you a whole lot about rejection, especially in his love life, which Kellerman fleshes out with glum, rueful details. A disco dandy he ain't. Nor a white knight. He's a more believable cop (he has his good-cop days, his bad-cop days) than we've seen in a long time, even in books written by cops.

Kellerman's voice as a social commentator and urban historian has never been stronger, nor her writing more exemplary. She makes the city a true (and truly menacing) character. Science and sociology can explain away some of the menace — but not all of it. It's one of the best Vegas books I've ever read. She also does something daring and spectacular with the various aspects of the investigation, the mysticism and the folk legends particularly. Instead of using them as simple window dressing, and explaining them away in scholarly terms, she turns them into urban legend — they seem fresh, raw, modern, inexorably bound up with the history of Las Vegas itself. These moments are dark and scary indeed. She really knows how to handle all this new material.

While some readers will no doubt miss Kellerman's regular crew, they will be genuinely rewarded by this dark, evocative, strange, and yet utterly believable novel. Faye Kellerman rolled the dice on this one — and won big.

—Ed Gorman

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Just outside the city's neon Strip, in the bleak wastelands of Nevada's desert, the Las Vegas Metro Police discover the mauled corpse of a young and beautiful showgirl. Even in a city known for its excesses - from Arab sheiks to casino billionaires - this crime is particularly shocking because of the animalistic destruction of the body. Called to the crime scene is Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe - a thirty-five-year-old Vegas native and a seasoned, fifteen-year veteran. A loner with a love of justice, Poe immerses himself in the horrific case. Poe is particularly struck by dread similarities to a slaying by an anonymous monster dubbed the Bogeyman. Immediately, Poe forms an investigatory team consisting of the handsome detective Stephen Jensen, his colleague but no friend; Detective Patricia Deluca, a homicide newcomer; and forensic pathologist Rukmani Kalil, who is also Poe's part-time girlfriend. From Native American mysticism and medieval folk legends to untold twentieth-century secrets, Poe must explore Vegas's sordid past and dark underbelly to solve a series of gruesome murders - and save a beautiful woman he once loved - before all of them are caught in a deadly dance of moon music.

FROM THE CRITICS

Dallas Morning News

Fascinating...fast-paced and dynamic..a novel that combines intelligent detection and thrills...with a good dollop of abnormal psychology.

Baltimore Sun

No one working in the crime genre is better.

Washington Post Book World

Mrs. Kellerman is taking a big risk here, and I think she pulls it off in fine style.

Washington Post Book World

Mrs. Kellerman is taking a big risk here, and I think she pulls it off in fine style. .

Dallas Morning News