Faye Kellerman is not a particularly stylish writer, nor an especially elegant plotter. What buoys her mysteries (Day of Atonement, The Ritual Bath) is the continuing romantic and spiritual progress of that refreshingly religious duo, Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker — the beautiful Orthodox woman and the tough detective who loves her. The trouble with False Prophet is that Rina, now married to Pete and pregnant, is stuck in the kitchen and reduced to worrying about her husband's long working hours, rather than challenging him in spiritual conversation. (She has become, in fact, a kvetch.) And Decker is sorting out a series of predictably glitzy crimes at a fancy ladies' health spa in L.A. Well, spa, shma, I say: Give me a good, flirtatious Talmudic discussion any day. B-
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