Vanish - Tess Gerritsen

I hate flying but from now on whenever I have a big trip coming up I am going to have to make sure that I take a Tess Gerritsen book with me. I had been unsure of which book to read as I flew to and from Switzerland and most of my contenders seemed too heavy (especially as I was on a little bit of vallium) but my latest read in the Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles novels ‘Vanish’ was absolutely perfect. I always say that a Tess Gerritsen book for me is my favourite ‘Guilty Pleasure’ but actually I am going to remove that tag from her books now as frankly literary or not (dependent on what you believe is and isn’t literature) she writes brilliant books that completely grip me and have me turning pages like crazy.

Vanish is in fact the fifth book in what was the Jane Rizzoli series and then became the Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isle series of crime/thriller novels that Tess Gerritsen has become incredibly famous for. Every single of the previous fur I have absolutely loved and raced through and so each time I open another one I always worry that this will be the one that I don’t like or that isn’t as good as the ones that have gone before it. I needn’t have worried as I was in safe, if gruesome, hands of a master of her work, or is it mistress of her work?

Dr Maura Isles is going about her routine paperwork at the morgue when she hears a noise. Not one for getting the creeps, as she is named ‘Queen of the Dead’, even she is shocked when she checks on the bodies and one of them opens their eyes. The woman is rushed to hospital where she then (and this isn’t spoiling the plot as its in the blurb) kills a guard and takes some of the staff and patients hostage. One such hostage is Detective Jane Rizzoli of homicide who is heavily pregnant. Who is this Jane Doe and what does she want and can Jane survive long enough to find out.

In previous books, as with this one, they are quite gruesome dark and tense. What makes an interesting twist with this book in particular is that Gerritsen decides to throw in some political twists which she hasn’t done so much in the past, had I known this I would possibly have been put off a little as I don’t do politics but Gerritsen makes it compelling reading adding to the suspense and twists which I don’t find many authors manage when they cross over the political thriller with the crime thriller. I can see this book gaining Gerritsen even more fans who may not have tried her before.

Along with all this is the fact that Gerritsen herself is a doctor and so she knows what she is talking about, never for one minute do you feel any of the scenes in the hospitals or morgues are faked, in fact Gerritsen has said that finding non dead people in morgues is more common than you would think which is a bit of a scary thought. Ok so some of the story line means you really have to suspend your belief (in the last one Dr Maura Isles opens up a body bag to see herself in it), but many, many books do that. Her characters though are superb and she does something only a few crime writers do which is get the reader to know the victim, making the death not only shocking tense and chilling but also adding the feeling you know that person makes it all the more horrific to read. I can’t say a bad thing about this book and do you know what… the next book, The Mephisto Club, sounds even better!

It was also perfect after the Orange shortlist (reviews still being sorted for the final two I read… I don’t understand what blogger is playing at) which though a great read and made me read some wonderful books I would otherwise have missed was a bit like an exercise and all too planned. Now before I try and do the Man Booker Long list when its announced I am more than happy to just let my reading whims take me wherever they should lead. Bliss!

Taking On My Travels

It’s all going a little bit wrong in the land of Blogger which I am finding quite annoying as it isn’t seeming to let me do any blogs before today when I want it to (additional note this should have been posted successfully at 11am not almost 11pm) and I am fairly unimpressed as I am desperately trying to get my Orange thoughts to you before tomorrow. Burnt Shadows finally seems to be up but it’s not letting me do two more which is really irritating! What I may have to do is put the reviews up in advance and you can get my full thoughts on the list on Wednesday and reviews of the final two afterwards, that cant be considered cheating as frankly I have read them and done the time. It is also annoying when you are trying to write a week worth of blogs so that while you are away magically there is something fun for your readers daily! I have to admit I am seriously thinking about moving blog provider when I come back from Switzerland or will that confuse things even more? Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated.

Anyway onto happier things I am off on holiday, in fact by the time this goes up I will be there… or even back who knows (I mustn’t think of that or I will worry while I am away and am on an internet break) and so of course I need to have some books to take on my travels. I think I have shown you how I do this before, in fact I have, but I base my travelling choices like this…

a) Something big I have been meaning to read for ages
b) A guilty pleasure read in case the above really just doesn’t work out, you know something slightly erm… un-literary??!!
c) Something by one of my favourite authors
d) Something brand spanking new ‘just in’ as you never know
e) A good crime novel
f) Something that has been hovering on my TBR pile and reading radar for sometime

Now because I am away for a week and doing a lot of train travelling across the Swiss landscape there will therefore be a lot of dragging of suitcases, so I have limited myself to five but some of them fit in several categories! So my Swiss TBR pile is looking very much like this…


Vanish – Tess Gerritsen
I love Tess as and author and frankly I have been holding of the next in the series for as long as physically possible. She’s becoming less and less of a guilty pleasure and more and more of an open obsession plus its crime and something that should keep my mind off being up in the air in a plane which I hate with a passion.

Wavewalker – Stella Duffy
You know that I love Stella’s work and this is the second in her crime series. I really enjoyed the first and so have high hopes for this, I will be saving it for my flight back as think it will take my mind of being in a tin can so many miles above the earth. Moving swiftly on…

Daphne – Justine Picardie
I have now said I will take this with me and read it on three holidays and its getting out of hand. A book all about the wonderful Daphne Du Maurier and The Bronte’s really is a must read, shame on me. I have just realised I still haven’t done a review of the new Daphne short stories so I will sort that out when I am back.

The Devil’s Paintbrush – Jake Arnott
This sees Jake leave the crime Genre and go all historical on us. I don’t have too much of an insight into what it’s about as I am desperate for it to be a surprise. It’s also been on a travel trip with me and come back unread, second time lucky let’s hope.

The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters
How could I not, I have managed to hold of the whole way through the Orange shortlist and I refuse to hold off any longer. That is all I have to say on it for the matter. A few of you seem quite divided on this book which has made me all the more intrigued.

…Now tell me London City Airport doesn’t have a book shop does it that could be lethal with time to kill and nerves galore!?! Oh and additional comment, please don’t be offended if I don’t visit your blogs or comment back on here while I am away, I will do so with gusto when I am back!

The Lesser of Two Bookish Evils

What I love about Booking Through Thursday is that it always makes me think. I generally end up waffling on (as I am sure I will do today) and find varying tangents to discuss. It makes me think out the box though and this weeks question “Which is worse… finding a book you love and then hating everything else you try by that author, or reading a completely disappointing book by an author that you love?” has not only made me think more about books and what I have read but also how I read.

Out of the two I don’t think I could say which is worse because of some ‘reading rules’ I have, in fact I think I may have to do a blog in the near future on reading and reviewing rules I have, though they aren’t set in stone. If I read one book I absolutely love by an author I will undoubtedly pick another of their books up but it might take me weeks, months even years for me to read another of their books or for them to write another if it’s their debut. If I couldn’t wait (very rare that that happens) and the next one was rubbish I would sadly probably write them off. There is a clause in that statement though in respect of if someone whose opinion I trust raved about another of their works I would possibly give them a second chance.

So what about an author I love who releases a dud book? Well in order to love an author I have to have read more than three/four of their books. If one of them was a dud before that the rule above would apply so they wouldn’t be an author I love. I only at present have authors like that Daphne Du Maurier, Ian McEwan, Stella Duffy, Tess Gerritsen and Susan Hill all who so far with all their varying writing styles and genres haven’t failed me once.

I do get nervous reading the next of their works though that it might be the one book by them that will really bad or put me off them (in my head for some reason I am thinking of McEwan’s ‘Saturday’ instantly which I haven’t tried yet but worries me in advance) as yet none of them have written a bad word. If one did… I would be disappointed but I would forgive them. It has happened with one author who would have made my favourite readers amount to six not five and that is Kate Atkinson whose books I love only I had a really, really hard time with ‘Behind The Scenes At The Museum’ which was the second book I read of hers after ‘Human Croquet’. I didn’t get on with ‘Behind The Scenes…’ and so much so, though I am going to try again, I was tempted not to bother with her again. Luckily three people recommended ‘Case Histories’ to me and my oneside relationship with Kate has never looked back.

So not only has today’s blog made me think about my reading in a different way its also made me look at my reading pattern (is that what you call it) as I have noticed I have quite a lot of books I have absolutely loved and either not read another word by that author yet or (like Margaret Atwood) read the second one a year or so down the line. I am thinking maybe I need to start reading the whole works of some authors such as Margaret Atwood, Anne Tyler… oooh who else? Any recommendations, what about all of you?

The Risk of Darkness - Susan Hill

Now you may all know that I am quite a Susan Hill fan, in fact I was surprised (only partly not hugely) when I saw realised she is the author with the most books on my bookshelves, and as you will see from yesterdays post I only put books on my shelves I have actually read. Therefore not only is she one of my favourites she’s actually my most read (followed closely by Daphne Du Maurier, Kate Atkinson, Stella Duffy and Tess Gerritsen), that was a long winded way of saying I like her work a lot basically. I started with her ghost stories, The Woman in Black being on of my all time favourite reads. Bizarrely as my mind started to develop a fondness for crime she started writing her Simon Serrailler Series. I have just finished the third ‘The Risk of Darkness’ and I think that so far it’s my favourite of the three.

If you haven’t read any of the other Simon Serrailler series such as The Various Haunts of Men or The Pure in Heart, I actually would recommend you start with them. While they can stand alone, in particular the first, I think you’ll get the most out of the book if you read them in order, though there is ‘what happened so far’ intro in The Risk of Darkness. I have to say personally I can’t read a series in the wrong order I don’t know why this is I just can’t. Simon Serrailler is a Detective in the city/town (I always imagine it’s a town but having a cathedral it must be a city – in fact in my head its very like Salisbury) of Lafferton, he is also an artist and this novel sees him weighing up the two careers. He is quite a complex character being a bit of a loner and having serious issues with women along the way. His family all live in Lafferton except on of his triplets who remains hidden in Australia, I always think something is going to happen with that story.

As for the plot I don’t want to say very much as if you haven’t read the previous two I could give quite a lot away. I will say this novel deals with the dark subject of female mass murderers which is one that isn’t tackled that often in crime. Well in my limited experience anyway. In all Hills ‘crime novels’ she deals with big subjects she wants to talk about. In this novel its not only female murderers but what might make someone who you would never think a killer become one, and in this novel there is a separate storyline discussing just that. We also gain more insight into Simon’s personality in this novel as he meets the new priest Jane Fitzroy. Could there be a happy ending for the two? In this particular series of Hill’s it would be most unlikely but that is what is great about Hill’s writing she is unpredictable and takes you to places and subjects you didn’t think she would.

This is a really good novel regardless of fiction genre. I don’t really label these as crimes like I don’t label Kate Atkinson’s Broadie novels as crimes though Atkinson’s have a lot more humour in them. It’s dark fiction with quite a lot of chaos, quite a lot of death which also looks at what makes people who they are and why. Apparently this is now the end of the trilogy but we do have the new Serrailler novel The Vows of Silence to look forward to which I will be reading in the next couple of weeks.

Friday the 13th

Yes it is that day, the unlucky day and I have to say I don’t like Friday the 13th I am a bit superstitious (some people may think that’s mad) and in if it was possible on these days you wouldn’t see me getting out of bed. However that isn’t the real world. I thought that as it’s a special certain date, and as I am coming to the end of Sophie Hannah’s Hurting Distance, that I would find a short quick themed read before I start something bigger. I had a look through my TBR (as I have read most of my spooky or horror/unlucky based books) and found that it was seriously lacking in contenders. I could only find five and one of them technically doesn’t count other than having Demon in the title. Please find below a collage (thanks to Picasa 3 – which Simon Stuck in a Book is so much better at than me) of the contenders…



In the end I am plumping for Tess Gerritsen’s Vanish, partly because I am in need of a delightful quick Thriller and she is just the woman for the job, I just know I will whizz through any of her works. It does sound like it will be horror filled as it starts with a body in the morgue waking up on the table ready to be... well you know. I find the whole idea that Gerritsen has actually seen that happen (as she bases her books on her work) quite horrific, can you imagine waking up and everyone thinking you were dead or someone you think is dead waking up? What a horrible thought, let’s not dwell on it shall we?

I was very tempted by M.R. James short stories or Frankenstein for a classic read and I haven’t read a Susan Hill in ages and I love her ghost stories but am holding out on her until I am ready for either Mrs De Winter or one of her crime novels. As I have heard Dovegreyreader mention a few times before everything needs to be aligned when you choose a book and that seemed just so with Vanish.

So is there anything that you could recommend me for a good scary read as we have another Friday the 13th coming up in March. Please do let me know as I am stumped on this one it has to be said. I am coming up with ideas for Valentines Day reads for tomorrow as well at the moment, so if you have anything you can suggest for that too I would be most grateful.

Not Writing But Blogging...

I know I probably don’t know half of the good book blogs out there in the ether. I have found some I love and there are several I subscribe to or drop in on, which have become favourites of mine and which you can see on the left under Bookish Blogs. What I haven’t really done which I think I will change is added Authors blogs. I don’t know about you but I do love a good blog regardless of the reason, ones by authors telling us how they create their craft and what they are all about sounds like heaven.

The blog that has got this blog started (is anyone else confused by that) is Not Writing But Blogging by the delightful Stella Duffy which I saw when catching up with Dove Grey Reader. Having only used minimal internet time whilst in Barcelona over New Years I had missed the launch of this, and I am sure an invite to the launch party. I have read a fair bit of Stella over the last twelve months and though a new find she is becoming one of my fav’s. Her, Kate Atkinson and Anne Tyler, who I don’t think have blogs sadly. If I am wrong please let me know and I will get reading them pronto. Without sounding sychophantic Stella is also just bloody lovely and her latest novel 'The Room of Lost Things' is out in Feb in paperback, do order it now! Anyways authors and their blogs... where are they all?

I know there was a slight snobbery towards book bloggers but authors I like such as Tess Gerritsen, Augusten Burroughs and Neil Gaiman have started them and I read avidly. I was a big fan of Susan Hill’s blog which one day was there and one day wasn’t and so if you know of any please wing them my way and I will get adding them. So that’s all really welcome to a new blogger, and let me know of any more author or just book wise that I am missing out on.

After arriving back from the joys of Spain I am too shattered to write more so apologies. I will say I had an amazing time I didn’t read anywhere near as much of Anna Karenina as I intended and I know its bad but am taking a break from her as had a lovely pile of new books from Vintage when I got home and one I have been wanting to read for ages… so off to bed with it now!

First of all Happy New Year!

It’s that time where we both look forward and look back and stock take isn’t it? At the beginning of last year when I start the blog properly one of the internal resolutions that I made in myself was to keep the blog up and not let it run dry. I didn’t do as well at that as I thought I would, I mean I reviewed every book I read but the blogs I had intended to write like ‘why I am obsessed with what everyone else reads on the tube’ and many more never got written but hopefully they will in 2009, I definitely improved toward the end of the year though! I also made some other resolutions on here…

The ones that sadly I failed at were;
- Read a Jodi Piccoult, I have always had something against her books and have absolutely no rational for this, 2008 wasn’t the year that I broke that habit
- The Odyssey, my mum would have been so proud if I had… but nope
- Read harder fiction, well am gunning through Anna Karenina at the moment and Will Self’s ‘The Book of Dave’ wasn’t easy but was extremely rewarding
- Hardy and Trollope, double no
- Revisit old favourites; nope sadly I was focused on getting through my huge TBR
- Give some books a second chance, no I wanted to have a second slog at Lionel Shriver’s ‘We Need to Talk about Kevin’ but I simply didn’t.

The ones I managed were;
- Read more short stories, I read two collections, maybe three but would have liked to read more
- Read a James Bond
- Read Tess Gerritsen, well I definitely did that actually becoming a big fan, managed to save some for this year though
- Read more non fiction, well with the Mitford Letters, a book on ghost hunting and the fabulous Kate Summerscale I did just that

So what about for 2009? What book resolutions have I got this year? Do I want to take any over that I didn’t manage this year? Well the ones I am setting myself this year are;
- Find a new favourite author I haven’t read before but can’t get enough of
- Classics, I want to read a lot more classics both classic classics and modern classics if that makes sense
- Try stuff I wouldn’t normally, this means joining some more book groups me thinks
- The Man Booker-a-thon, I would really like to give this a go this year especially now I know more publishers
- Possibly re-try a few books like ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ and ‘Company of Liars’ the latter I really wanted to read but it didn’t grab the mood I was in, oh and Kate Atkinson's 'Behind The Museum
- Not buy as many books; I think this one is unlikely.

I think that’s enough? Is anyone else making any book resolutions this year?

Body Double

After a few ropey classics I have decided to start October with one of my favourite authors of the moment Tess Gerritsen. It is great to know in a world filled with so many books and the possibility of so many let downs (and yes so many gems) that you can pick up a book and just know the time will whizz by and you will be hooked and lost in another fictional world.

‘Body Double’ has just done exactly that and I think in all honesty that it’s my favourite of Gerritsen’s books so far and that is saying something. Whereas the previous books have in general focused on Jane Rizzoli this one is much more about ‘Queen of the Dead’ pathologist Maura Isles who has been sneakily becoming a bigger and bigger character in the series as it has gone on. You can read these books in any order; I am just a bit funny about reading things in order. I digress, the story…

Maura Isles has been on holiday after her previous horrific adventure with Jane Rizzoli. When she arrives back from ‘vacation’ she finds the police surrounding her house and a dead woman in a car outside, when she see’s the dead woman she sees herself and they share a birth day and the same blood type. In fact when the DNA tests come in Maura finds that the woman in the car was her twin sister given away when they were both adopted. Maura goes in search of her sisters past and finds it’s full of dark and deadly secrets.

Gerritsen is amazingly clever in firstly coming up with such a clever, warped and dramatic story and secondly in pulling it off. What seems so unlikely is made completely believable once the story of the past of these twin sisters starts to come to light and also it’s incredibly creepy. This is less of a gore fest than its predecessors also and I have to say is slightly better for it, you still get quite a lot of facts and some of them quite squeamish when the autopsies are performed to various cadavers.

Plot is one of the key element, like Christie (but much gorier) the prose is fast and blunt rather than flowery but the plot is tight and you can devour a five hundred page book in one sitting. I am a complete Gerritsen fan, and while I could quite happily move straight onto ‘Vanish’ I have decided to savour the moment and leave off, I don’t want to finish this series before the new one is out do I?

The Sinner

Yes, back to Gerritsen so soon. I was umming and ahhhing what was quick to read before I start on a Nancy Mitford’s ‘The Pursuit of Love’ and also the next Book Group book as I have just over a week and it’s quite a large book. So I went with Gerritsen. ‘The Sinner’ is the third in the Jane Rizzoli series, and the second with Maura Isles as the medical examiner. Would this be as good as the first two? Would I be hooked and unable to put the book down?

The answer to the above is pretty much. In some ways this is better than the previous two in others its not, overall it’s very, very good. Isles and Rizzoli are called to a cloistered convent where one nun has been murdered and another has been left fatally injured. There are no motives and no clues as to why a pair of nuns would be attacked in such a way it’s for Rizzoli and Isles to work out together. Then when another faceless, handless and footless body turns up secrets are revealed and our two leading ladies have to work out the link between her (the Rat Lady) and the two nuns, with many a twist along the way.

I actually like these two leading women. Rizzoli has grown in every novel so far, and though she has quite a secret in store she sadly doesn’t seem to be in the novel so much as before which makes you feel slightly like your not part of the investigation from a coppers side. You are much more involved in the process of autopsy’s as Isles has now gone from being a supporting role to very much a main character role which is great as she is another strong woman with flaws (named Queen of the Dead) in a different way from Rizzoli, also without her the story wouldn’t make sense. Two things I wasn’t sure about with her was that a) she drank sherry when she got home from a long day (sometimes one thing can just make you think ‘she wouldn’t do that though’) b) someone turns up in her life which creates a great back story for her but also is very clichéd in a ‘oh now I think I know what’s coming’ way both disappointed me slightly.

Other than that this is a great crime novel/murder mystery with gore galore. Gerritsen knows her terminology (and I figure once I have caught up with the series so will I) of medicine, autopsy’s and operations. There is a lot less murder and a lot more mystery in this novel which is both good and bad. If you are expecting a book that fits the last twos plot lines and formula, you won’t get quite what you are expecting. But then that’s also a good thing right? I picked up the next one this afternoon, but I am being very good and having a Gerritsen break for a while… well as long as I can manage.

The Apprentice

I know some people can be really snobby about books and I know that one author who occasionally has fallen prey to this is Tess Gerritsen; she is seen as the perfect flight read, the perfect holiday read. Or, as my friend Polly thought, ‘the perfect hospital read’ when she bought me The Surgeon a few years ago. Fortunately at that time the nerves pre-op meant that I had not the concentration to read it, as frankly a book about a mad surgeon who goes on a murder rampage might not be the best read when you’re waiting for a date with a scalpel. I did read it in recovery and loved it; it’s a fast and furious book and a definite page turner.

Undecided upon what to read after the epic and confusing God Of Small Things I thought I would turn to Tess for something that ‘thrilled’ me, and she did once again. I was up until 2am simply having to get to the end unable to stop reading.

‘The Apprentice’ takes place a year after ‘The Surgeon’ and said criminal is locked up when similar, but not the same, murders start again in Boston. Detective Jane Rizzoli, who The Surgeon is obsessed with after the previous summers events, is called in to help Detective Korsak before heading up the case herself alongside the FBI who rarely get involved in such cases. Only when The Surgeon escapes and teams up with the new murdered does Rizzoli realise she might just be the next victim.

Tess Gerritsen is making a great heroine in Rizzoli; she’s smart and ballsy but a flawed workaholic who cannot help being the black sheep of the family. She’s believable, which isn’t always the case in this genre of fiction. This book also sees a new female character arrive on the scene Dr Maura Isles (she deals with all the dead bodies) or as she’s called ‘The Queen of The Dead’ who is going to feature future novels that seems like she has hidden depths and a slight dislike of Rizzoli.

The book surpasses The Surgeon (which was great) in gore, thrills, spills, story and character and I think Tess Gerritsen just gets better and better. So forget holiday’s reads and hospital reads just read this you’ll be hooked.

Breaking The Book Ban

So much for me not buying any more books as was my orders (see previous Book Ban blog) and intentions. These were ruined when I went to a charity shop that I had forgotten existed. Now this shop is like an Aladdin's Cave only recently it seems to have had a makeover into Aladdin's Library with over 15 shelves of books at 50p each, or 6 for £2. So naturally I bought six, I could have easily bought twelve, but was restrained as knew that would be wrong and the look I would get when I got through the door at home would be murderous. I can say only five were for me... does that make it better? So my treats were...

The Bird of the Night - Susan Hill
I have no idea what this is about as I still haven't read the blurb, I have heard of it before and heck its Susan Hill so it is bound to be brilliant. I love, love, love the cover am hoping its quite a twisted tale which is what the cover seems to suggest. Anytime I see a Susan Hill novel I dont have and is hard to get its a MUST have.

Vanish - Tess Gerritssen
I said I would wait until had actually read its predecessor 'Body Double' until I bought this but what can you do when its sat there tempting you with a 50p price tag. I have a feeling I will have read all of her novels in this series by the end of the year. Addictive. The fact it opens with a body in the morgue waking up sent a horrid chill down my spine... genius.

Back When We Were Grown Ups - Anne Tyler
I have only read Digging To America by Tyler so far but every review read of her books on other peoples blogs suggest shes an author to get the collection of. This was a debateable one between 'Falling Leaves' there were so many copies of the later will wait for another trip.

Once in a House on Fire - Andrea Ainsworth
I hate, hate, hate these 'tragic life stories, and the fact that these things (they are not books) have their own section in book shops now bugs me no end. However this is one of those with a twist, the author had made it more fictional and my Gran and Aunty Caz have both said its great, so will try and see.

Not The End of The World - Kate Atkinson
One of the few books that I dont have of hers and I am trying to get more into short stories and can imagine that hers are fantastic.

Star People - Paul Burston
This wasn't for me, this was for Polly. She's been determined to read one of Mr Burston's books ever since we started going to Polari. This is fun read about a man in the closet in Hollywood and I think Polly will really enjoy it, I have a copy already.

So thats that!

The Surgeon

Now bare in mind that I was bought this book by my best friend Polly, as the perfect read for an operation. Funnily enough its not something you would actually want to read before you go under the knife, fortunately my mind couldn’t concentrate on the book what with pre-op nerves. So instead I thought I would read it when I was recovering from being ill, and I am glad I did because I think I would have cancelled my operation.

The Surgeon is my first dabble with Tess Gerritsen, only in the last year or so have I started to read more and more crime novels (it makes sense in a way as I was addicted to Sherlock Holmes in my youth) and hers are renowned for being some of the fastest paced and most gory and in what is a huge market some of the best.

Detective Thomas Moore and his partner Jane Rizzoli are called the investigators of a bout of killings in Boston, all have the same ritualistic acts of torture all are women who were on their own, all are killed in there own houses. It seems a serial killer is on the loose and with the gruesome way in which he kills his victims (think Boston’s very own Jack the Ripper) he is called The Surgeon. To add another twist or two into the works the killer seems to be linked to an old case of which the only surviving victim, medic Catherine Cordell, is now living in… you guessed it Boston. How are they interlinked and how soon until Cordell becomes The Surgeon’s latest victim?

Yes the book is gory, but it isn’t to the point you feel ill, Gerritsen clearly knows her stuff and in some bizarre way I found it quite educational. She also writes great characters Rizzoli, so focused on her job she has sacrificed a life, is smitten with Moore who is in turn smitten with Cordell so we not only have murders we have a complex love triangle. The story is also extremely fast paced, forget the tags of ‘holiday read’ and ‘page turner’ just apply thrilling and entertaining as this book really does have it all. I read it in two sittings I simply couldn’t get enough. My first Gerritsen will definitely not be my last.