The ritual bath

When the call comes in, Detective Peter Decker can hardly believe it.

A rape at the yeshiva up in the canyon and hill country behind Los Angeles?

True, there had been some recent anti-Semitic vandalism but never any violence.

Not only that, but this was a strict Orthodox Jewish community, self-enclosed and suspicious of outsiders.

Not much chance they'd co-operate with the police. And he is right - as Rina Lazarus, the frustratingly fascinating young widow who found the victim proves when she talks about her world.

Outsider he may be, but Decker has a feeling in his policeman's bones that the cost of privacy to this determined community could be murderously high...