Kellerman Crime Dynasty: Decker to Delaware
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- Faye Kellerman launched the Peter Decker / Rina Lazarus series in 1986 with The Ritual Bath, published by Arbor House.
- Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware series debuted in 1985 with When the Bough Breaks, which won the Edgar and Anthony Awards for Best First Novel.
- As of September 2026, Faye has published 27 Decker/Lazarus novels; Jonathan has written over 40 Delaware entries.
- The couple married in 1972 and have co-authored several novels, including the Clay Edison series launched in 2017.
- Both series are set primarily in Los Angeles — Faye's in the San Fernando Valley LAPD precincts, Jonathan's in the canyons and Westside enclaves.
- Faye integrates Orthodox Jewish ritual and family life into her procedurals; Jonathan's Delaware is secular, psychologically scarred, fiercely introspective.
Hangman — Faye Kellerman
The Decker series at Book 19 is hardboiled procedural comfort food — worn grooves, high stakes, zero fat. By the time you hit Hangman (2010), Decker's an LAPD lieutenant juggling Homicide and a growing Orthodox household with Rina. The case — a string of hangman-style murders that feel ritualised, personal, and utterly unhinged — pulls Decker into the kind of twisted pathology Faye does best: methodical detective work laced with theological dread. She writes LAPD bureaucracy like she's lived it (her research is obsessive), and Rina's domestic subplot grounds the gore in something warm. This is meat-and-potatoes crime fiction that trusts its reader to pay attention. Explore our current copy of Hangman or browse more Crime books at Patina.Milk and Honey — Faye Kellerman
Book 3 (1990) is where Faye locked in the formula: dead bodies, Torah study, and a detective who actually listens to his wife. Two toddlers abandoned in a mall parking lot; a gruesome honey farm murder scene; Rina Lazarus still a widow dating the secular cop who's falling hard for her. Milk and Honey is early-series Faye at her most structurally elegant — the mystery tightens like a noose, the romance deepens without going maudlin, and the Orthodox Jewish community of Los Angeles gets textured, respectful airtime. If you want to understand why the Decker/Lazarus partnership works across 27 books, start here. Faye writes procedural like P.D. James writes England: layered, patient, unshowy. Explore our current copy of Milk and Honey or browse more Crime books at Patina.The Burnt House — Faye Kellerman
Book 16 (2007) opens with a plane crash into an apartment building — Faye does disaster forensics like a coroner with a narrative gift. Lieutenant Decker sifts charred bodies and aviation wreckage for a victim count that doesn't add up. Someone died who wasn't on the manifest; someone survived who should be dead. The Burnt House is Faye at her most architecturally ambitious — multi-POV, insurance fraud, a missing person cold case that dovetails with the crash. She writes fire scenes with the visceral detail of a first responder report, then pivots to Rina's subplot about their teenage sons without missing a tonal beat. If you like your procedurals dense, morally grey, and obsessed with the physics of violence, this is the sweet spot. Explore our current copy of The Burnt House or browse more Crime books at Patina.Over the Edge — Jonathan Kellerman
Book 3 (1987) in the Delaware series is where Jonathan pivots from procedural to psychological horror — the kid you tried to save calls you screaming, then vanishes. Alex Delaware's former teenage patient Jamey Cadmus phones in the middle of the night, terrified, incoherent, talking about blood. Then he's arrested for serial murder. Jonathan writes mental illness without sensationalism — Jamey's schizophrenia is clinical, tragic, and weaponised by everyone around him. Over the Edge digs into LA's psychiatric infrastructure, pharmaceutical corruption, and the ethics of involuntary commitment with the same gothic dread Thomas Harris brings to Lecter. If Faye's crime fiction is methodical, Jonathan's is claustrophobic. He traps you in Delaware's head and won't let you leave. Explore our current copy of Over the Edge or browse more Crime books at Patina.Therapy — Jonathan Kellerman
Book 18 (2004) is Jonathan at his most metafictional — a therapist manipulating patients into murder, and Delaware unravelling the shrink's playbook. When a woman is found dead in her therapist's office, Delaware and LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis peel back layers of transference, manipulation, and outright gaslighting. Jonathan's spent 40 books interrogating therapy's power dynamics (he's a clinical psychologist by training), and Therapy is where he stops being polite about it. The killer is smarter than Delaware, more credentialed, and utterly convinced of their moral superiority. It's The Silence of the Lambs if Lecter had a couch and a DSM-5. Jonathan writes evil as intellectual vanity, and it's chilling. Explore our current copy of Therapy or browse more Crime books at Patina. The Kellerman dynasty runs deep — if you want procedural grit with theological weight, Faye's your architect. If you want noir psychology and canyon-house dread, Jonathan's the dark mirror. Both understand that Los Angeles crime fiction is about geography as much as guilt. Shop all Crime books at Patina Paperbacks →Where can I buy secondhand Faye Kellerman Peter Decker novels in Sydney?
Patina Paperbacks stocks rotating preloved copies of the Decker/Lazarus series — early entries like Milk and Honey and later instalments like Hangman and The Burnt House. We're Sydney-based and ship Australia-wide, so you're not hunting down out-of-print editions solo. Check the crime section for current stock.
Are Jonathan Kellerman and Faye Kellerman related?
Yes — they've been married since 1972 and have built parallel crime empires. Jonathan launched the Alex Delaware psychological thriller series in 1985; Faye debuted the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus procedurals in 1986. They've also co-authored novels, including the Clay Edison forensic series that started in 2017. Same household, different detectives.
What's the reading order for the Alex Delaware series?
Jonathan Kellerman's Delaware series runs 40+ books starting with When the Bough Breaks (1985). You can jump in anywhere — each novel is self-contained — but the early entries (Over the Edge, Silent Partner) establish Delaware's relationship with LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis and his retreat from clinical practice. Later books like Therapy (Book 18) assume you know the core dynamic but don't require chronological reading.
Does Faye Kellerman write other series besides Peter Decker?
Yes — Faye launched a standalone series in 2014 featuring Detective Tyler McAdams and Harvard senior Eliza Slaughter, starting with The Theory of Death. She's also written historical mysteries set in Elizabethan England (The Quality of Mercy, 1989) and co-authored the Clay Edison forensic novels with Jonathan and their son Jesse. But the Decker/Lazarus series remains her flagship — 27 books and counting.
What makes the Kellerman crime novels distinctly Los Angeles?
Both Kellermans write LA as topography and psychology. Faye sets procedurals in the San Fernando Valley's sprawl — strip malls, Foothill Division precincts, Orthodox synagogues tucked into tract housing. Jonathan's Delaware inhabits the Westside canyons, secluded estates, and Malibu cliffs where wealth and paranoia compound. Neither writes LA as glamour — it's infrastructure, microclimates, and the specific kinds of violence geography enables. Michael Connelly does downtown noir; the Kellermans own the hills and valleys.