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.