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Street dreams are the nightmares of rookie cops --- dreams of violence, fear and mistakes. In Faye Kellerman's latest novel, STREET DREAMS, LAPD officer Cindy Decker has had a traumatic year on the force and at night dreads the street dreams she has in her sleep. But a new case and a new person in her life are about to occupy her time, her thoughts and her energy.
One night Decker is flagged down in her patrol car and brought to an alley. A restaurant employee taking out the trash hears the cries of a baby and Cindy quickly dives into the dumpster and recovers the newborn. She sees that the baby is safe in the hospital that night and is impressed by Koby, the handsome and intense pediatric nurse on duty. She now must find the mother of the baby and make sure she is safe and healthy as well. The search for the baby's mother takes her around Hollywood, from alleyways to bus stops to local haunts to high schools and eventually to a school for developmentally challenged young people. She soon identifies the mother as a mentally retarded young woman named Sarah, whose boyfriend, the father of the baby, disappeared months ago. Now that Cindy knows the baby and the mother are safe, she decides to work in her spare time to find David, the baby's father.
Finding David proves harder than finding Sarah. But with the help of her father, Lieutenant Peter Decker, Cindy navigates a world of thugs and gangsters to locate him and bring him the news of the birth of his daughter as well as to make sure he is safe after the brutal attack he and Sarah had suffered the day he disappeared.
Cindy's search for the baby's parents leads her to other crimes that had been previously unknown but that end in a brutal hit-and-run accident. Cindy witnesses this accident, and it only fuels her desire to figure out the culprit and what this may have to do with David and Sarah. She does much of her work in her off-time and knows she must be careful not to damage her fledgling law enforcement career. Her father helps to balance her enthusiasm with good police work.
In addition to their busy work schedules, Peter and Cindy are also busy in their personal lives. Kellerman's readers are familiar with Peter, his wife Rina and their children --- and they do form a subplot in this novel. Meanwhile, Cindy is forming an intense and interesting relationship with the nurse Koby, an Ethiopian Jew who lived in Israel before coming to the U.S. Cindy and Koby's relationship intensifies quickly and balances the police/crime aspect of the novel. Kellerman fans have come to know and enjoy this balance of personal and emotional with mystery.
Those who prefer their crime novels with no sentimentality (much less romance) will find themselves skimming the pages concerning Cindy and Koby's courtship in order to get back to the story of Cindy chasing the gang members who brutalized David and Sarah.
STREET DREAMS will not disappoint Kellerman fans. The Decker family dynamics are here as well as an interesting mystery. Cindy is not as developed as her father Peter and stepmother Rina, and this case has less urgency than some of the other Decker/Lazarus novels. Still, it is enjoyable and well written. Cindy and Peter are not as dynamic a duo as Peter and Rina, but the father-daughter relationship complicates both the police work and Cindy's romance just enough for some great literary tension.
STREET DREAMS should appeal not only to those familiar with Kellerman's work but also to those looking for a well-crafted and immensely readable story.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
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