The Golem of Hollywood (A Detective Jacob Lev Novel)

I love magical realism, so this book is "right up my alley", so to speak. The low reviews here make me sad, but I suppose they are written by readers who wanted an LA Whodunnit, rather than an exploration of dimensions of and purity of the soul. This is no ordinary "murder mystery". Fans of Dara Horn (The World to Come) will enjoy this book immensely, as I did. I loved the symbolic "clues" left throughout the book.

This story is a beautiful, intriguing exploration of the concept of Gilgul, the wheel-like cycle of souls. It is so much fun, and so fulfilling to read a fiction bestseller that dares to play with the assumptions we make about life!

SPOILER ALERT (a few details that felt like hints to me ): I was drawn in immediately by Asham, whose name is the ritual sacrifice made for accidental/unpremeditated transgressions. Asham/אשם = Guilty. (Her name foretold her fate, but the narrative makes it clear that it is she alone who sealed it.) I grew suspicious the instant Jacob read his mother's gravestone and her Hebrew name was פרל, "Pearl/Perel". I don't know why, but I knew it was significant...names being what they are. The beetle/cockroach is a wonderful nod to Kafka, but much more powerfully, a symbol of the Judahite Monarchy. I love the use of the number 36, including Lev's name,(the protagonist family's American surname LeV; לב; 36, Lamed Vav). I loved the use of 613, and so many.numbers and symbols that inspire me to contemplate possibilities on what we are, and why we are: Gan Eden, Olam HaZeh vs. Olam haBa; Gehinom...FASCINATING!

Golem of Paris, here I come.

Perhaps there's a bit too much thrown into this mix, but I loved it. It's a combination of genres, so if you're expecting to read a mystery, police procedural, fantasy, historical novel, reincarnation or even a love story, you may be disconcerted by the combination of all these elements. If you are not Jewish or have no knowledge of Eastern European Judaism, you may be bored. I think this book would appeal mostly to Jews of Eastern European descent who know a lot of the folk tales and religious rituals (whether they practice them or not). The Golem of the title is a sort of Frankenstein, made of mud by a rabbi who lived in a ghetto hundreds of years ago. His intention was to protect the inhabitants of his town. But the authors give far more of a backstory to the creature, going all the way back to Adam and Eve, and a follow-up which moves into the present day. In the present: an alcoholic detective who battles depression and has fallen from his Jewish roots is assigned to a covert unit and told to investigate a bizarre murder. He encounters a very mysterious woman and an assortment of enigmatic coworkers, reunites somewhat with his father, a devout Jew who is regarded as practically a saint, and learns some shocking, almost unbelievable, things about himself and his family. There's a sequel, which I'm eager to read. I think this is a terrific book, but intended for a narrow audience.

I thought this book was fabulous. I had read THE GOLEM OF PRAGUE first and was unclear about some points. However this book, which I should have read first, cleared up most of them. I didn't find it at all confusing, I loved the way he interspersed the story of Mia in between the story of the hunt for the serial killers. The only criticisms I might have would be that I never got a complete picture of who the tall cops were, were they half angels? Also I don't know why they wanted to kill Mia. The inner story didn't tell why the Maharal was "given permission" to create the golem and why he had to give him up. I am gathering that the golem's soul was for penance for what she did at Tower of Babel. Also I am unclear about Sam Lev's true roll, other than the obvious one of being the main character's father. In the story he knew the tall cops, but it never explained why. Was he the reincarnat of the Maharal? And was Bina the reincarnat of the Maharal's wife? And then there is the question of why Mia was obsessed with the main character? What drew her to him? The explanation about the beetle explained the obsession but not the initial attraction. I missed that answers somehow. However, despite these lingering questions, which might be my failing, I loved both of the Golem books and I hope Kellerman writes more in that series. I will definitely follow them and maybe along the way, get the answeres to my questions.

l cops

first let me say that any book that I read in two sittings that causes me to do hours more research can't be bad. From my earliest Bible studies I have wondered...who or what are the nephilim and are they the sames as the "sons of god" and if not what are they? Next, although man-made life myths are not uncommon, why do they figure so much in Jewish mysticism? Fourth, what of the daughters of Adam and Eve? This book, wrapped around a decent who-dunnit, gives direction but no certainty to these questions. A new question is created: if the nephalim were responsible for the saving of the spirit of Asham and she became the animus of the golem, why were the nephalim dedicated to its destruction? And the next book never answers how the golem was captured in the jar. Ah, well. A book that makes me think this much and work this hard can't be bad.

I am sad to say that I did not enjoy this one as much as I did so many of Jonathan Kellerman's past novels. The intersecting stories were interesting in the way that they came together, but as a whole the book just kind of plodded along. I didn't feel any investment in the story or characters until near the end, which is sad and leads me to feel as if I have to push myself to finish it - not something that I have ever experienced with his previous novels. Well written and intelligent, no doubt, but not his best, I'm sorry to say. I'm equally sorry that I spent such a high amount for an ebook! I was going to look for it at the library until I saw Stephen King's review and thought "That sounds fantastic!" Unfortunately, now I feel cheated. Where's the suspense?

Detective Jacob Lev is the anti-Alex Delaware. Alcoholic, womanizing, careening from one thing to another career-wise, and slovenly in his eating habits. It’s hard to like him and I spent much of this novel NOT liking him. In fact, I STILL don’t like him. It is entirely possible that in future books about this character he becomes a more likable character, but I am not sure that I want to read another one in the series.

This book finally did grab my attention to the point where it was hard to put down, but I was well over 75% of the way through before I got to that point. I found the mystery more interesting than the Jewish back story—the authors were trying to channel the Agent Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. That story was interesting too, but I found it detracted from the mystery.

So the upshot is I can’t really recommend this book, because it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, a whodunnit or a supernatural thriller. I know, I know, it wants to be both, but doesn’t quite manage to carry that off.

I am a fan of Jonathan Kellerman and bought the Kindle edition expecting it to give the same level of pleasure one gets when reading his Alex Delaware-Milo Sturgis novels. I bought this book because he was one of the authors but I was disappointed to find out that this is not a serious detective novel. Far from it. It's more of an essay on the Jewish religion plus some "hot" stuff plus some supernatural stuff to bring in those market segments. Lead character Detective Jacob Lev is Jewish and presumably so are the two co-authors and all three are obviously proud of their religion and use the book to tell us why. Added to this mix is the hero's love who has supernatural powers which enable her to turn herself into a poisonous bug and sting any female who gets too cosy with the hero, in the bottom! Parallel to the main story the book frequently lapses into a parallel story thread which showed up as grey pages in my ancient Kindle. This was helpful as I was able to entirely skip these grey pages and come out none the worse in terms of understanding the story. I continue to be a fan of Jonathan Kellerman and wish his son, co-author Jesse well. JonathanK is obviously giving his son a leg up by lending his name to this book, but he should also realize that it is damaging his reputation as an author. I will continue to read his books but will think many times before buying books in this Detective Jacob Lev series again.

This is the first Jonathan Kellerman novel i have read ,and if it is representative of his work , it will be the last. I found the entire novel totally confusing. A search for a serial killer by a young Jewish detective working for people i never did determine to be members of the LAPD like the detective was, searching around LA and then over to Prague and back to LA. He finally did solve the crime to his credit but the book was overfilled with information about the Jewish faith( i happen to love stories involving Jewish communities, families etc) and i finally stopped trying to correctly pronounce many of the names of people, communities, streets etc in the interest of getting through the book itself to the ending. Finally periodically throughout the book there were several chapters which told some sort of fantasy story which, in my mind, had nothing to do with the non fantasy chapters( at least that i could see) so i stopped reading those after the second one. I bought this book because i wanted to sample Kellerman and because the title was intriguing . I wont even put this book in our community library where i live because i wouldnt want to do that to any other reader. I know....i could have stopped reading it at any point, but Kellerman has such an excellent reputation i just expected the book to improve as it went along. Sadly, at least to me, it didnt.