The Lost Boys (B&N Exclusive Edition) (Decker/Lazarus Series #26)

by Faye Kellerman

Overview

The Barnes & Noble Exclusive Edition includes Letter to reader: The inspiration behind Lost Boys.

Faye Kellerman returns with an atmospheric, face-paced mystery set in bucolic upstate New York, full of unexpected twists and turns that build to a shocking and surprising end—the latest thrilling entry in her New York Times bestseller Decker/Lazarus series.

When Bertram Telemann, a developmentally disabled man, goes missing from a local diner near Greenbury, the entire community of the small upstate New York town volunteers to search the surrounding woods in hopes of finding him. High functioning and independent, Bertram had been on a field trip with the staff and fellow residents of the Loving Care Home when he vanished. 

When no trace of the man is found, the disappearance quickly becomes an official missing persons case and is assigned to detectives Peter Decker and his partner Tyler McAdams. As their investigation deepens, the seasoned Decker becomes convinced that Bertram hadn’t lost his way, but had left with someone he knew. Soon Decker discovers that Elsie Schulung, a recently fired nurse who had worked at the home, seemed to be especially interested in Bertram. But answers proves elusive when Elsie disappears and human blood is found in her kitchen. 

But the complications are only beginning. While combing the woods, searchers discover the remains of one of three young men who had vanished during a camping trip. And for Decker, personal problems are adding pressure as well. After a ten-year absence, the biological mother of Decker’s and Rina’s foster son, Gabriel, has suddenly appeared in New York, children in tow, wreaking emotional havoc on the young man.

Juggling the personal and professional, a hot case and a cold case, Decker and McAdams race to find answers, sifting through cabinets of old files, a plethora of clues and evidence, and discouraging dead ends. As on-going searches for Bertram and the campers’ missing remains continue, the frustrated detectives begin to wonder if the woods will ever give up its dark secrets . . . and if these intertwining cases will be solved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063097414
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Series:	Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Series , #26
Edition description:	B&N Exclusive Edition
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	629,815
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Faye Kellerman lives with her husband, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman, in Los Angeles, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Hometown:

Beverly Hills, California

Date of Birth:

July 31, 1952

Place of Birth:

St. Louis, Missouri

Education:

B.A. in Mathematics, 1974; D.D.A., 1978

Editorial Reviews

10/19/2020

In bestseller Kellerman’s so-so 26th novel featuring married couple Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus (after 2018’s Walking Shadows), Decker, a former LAPD detective now with the police in the “sleepy little college town” of Greenbury, N.Y., has two cases to occupy him. First, 35-year-old Bertram Lanz, who’s cognitively disabled, has gone missing from a field trip arranged by his residential facility, and after extensive searches don’t locate him, Decker fears that Lanz could have been abducted. Second, the searchers locate human skeletal remains that may belong to one of three college students who vanished a decade earlier. Lazarus has little to do apart from prepare food and give advice to her family. Drama among the extended family pads the detecting, and banal prose (“Four decades of detective work had taught Decker a thing or two. One of the delights of Missing Persons cases was that they often had happy endings. But sometimes not”) is another minus. This one’s for longtime fans only. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

08/01/2020

In Fellowes's The Mitford Trial, lady's maid Louisa Cannon is asked by a shadowy stranger to spy on Diana Mitford and her sister Unity, with someone ending up dead in the water when Louisa later accompanies the Mitfords on a cruise (75,000-copy first printing). Gentill's Shanghai Secrets takes Rowland Sinclair from Australia to Shanghai in 1935 on business, but the death of a Russian taxi dancer he steered across the floor one night complicates matters. In the latest Decker/Lazarus mystery, The Lost Boys, Peter Decker believes that a developmentally disabled man who vanished while on an outing from his residential home went off with someone he knew (100,000-copy first printing; originally scheduled for October 2020). Schaffhausen's Every Waking Hour features Ellery Hathaway, who is gingerly reentering normal life as a rookie Boston detective after escaping a serial killer as a teenager when a 12-year-old girl in her care disappears (40,000-copy first printing). In Tracy's Deep into the Dark, a series launch, LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan doesn't believe that emotionally shattered Afghanistan war vet Sam Easton is responsible for a murder and joins forces with him to find the culprit. A winner of Bram Stoker and British Fantasy awards, Tremblay stretches the imagination in The Little Sleep with a South Boston private detective who suffers from narcolepsy-induced hypnagogic hallucinations that may include reality talent show star Jennifer Times trying to hire him to retrieve her stolen fingers.

Library Journal