What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

These books were definitely not the 'Friday the Rabbi Slept Late series; I've checked. However, they do have what seems to be the same basic premise, of a rabbi getting caught up through circumstance in solving mysteries.

I remember reading them when I was at medical school, which would put it in the first half of the '90s; they were library books, though, so could have been quite a bit older. The protagonist's name was Daniel. I think his love interest's name was Laura; she was a divorced woman whose daughter was at the religious school, because she wanted to give her daughter more religious background than she'd had.

One of the books was about Daniel's former psychotherapist being murdered. Daniel regarded the man highly and is very upset; there's a scene where he's conducting the funeral and holds a piece of the man's bloodstained clothing up to tell the congregation that his blood is crying out for revenge (apparently this was an old Jewish custom, or something mentioned in the Talmud, or something). As the book goes on, however, Daniel realises the psychotherapist was breaking confidences about his patients in order to manipulate people.

Another one was about a woman in Daniel's congregation who was being denied a Jewish divorce by her first husband, preventing her from remarrying.

(spoiler)

In that book, the first husband is the one who gets murdered, and it turns out at the end that the wife is the one who did it; Daniel figures it out when he sees her cigarette butt, as there's something identifiable about it (the lipstick on it or something, I forget what).

The first book begins with Daniel and Laura (if that's her name; I might have it wrong) meeting when she comes to him about a stolen watch which her daughter brought into school. (It's some sort of family heirloom and very important to her.) She wants to involve the police and try to terrify the child who stole it into confessing. Daniel tells her he wants to try another approach; he gets the whole school into the assembly hall and tells them all that whoever stole it might get away with it, but if they do so then they'll always know they're a thief. He then offers them an amnesty period during which whomever did it can leave the watch in the main hall, no questions asked. This works and they get the watch back. (We never find out who took it.) Laura's impressed and they start dating. There's a scene at the end of one book where he proposes to her with a huge flashy joke ring to put her at ease, as he knows she's nervous about getting married again.

Joseph Telushkin's Rabbi (Daniel) Winter series, probably? I never read them, so I can't tell you the individual plot lines, but they were published in the mid-to-late 1980s and begin with The Unorthodox Murder Of Rabbi Moss. The Final Analysis of Dr. Stark is about the murder of a psychiatrist.

This is it! Thank you! I've added them to my Christmas list, so now people will have something to get me. :)

(I'd forgotten the first one was dissing feminists, though... sigh. Oh, well, I remember the books as being very good overall, so I'll still re-read them.)

You're welcome -- glad you found your book!