After reading Call After Midnight (review here), I decided to start on Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles series. Great call on my part: the Surgeon must be one of the most gripping murder suspense novels I have read in a while.Â
Gerritsen opens the story with the ordeal of Catherine Cordell, a beautiful trauma surgeon. Two years previously, in Savannah, she comes close to being murdered after having been raped and tortured, but ends up killing her attacker.
The story then focuses on present day Boston, where a killer is targeting lone women, upon whom he commits ritualistic torture acts before providing the final merciful blow. His surgical skills lead the police to find he plays some part in the medical field, and is thus daubed "The Surgeon".
Gerristen introduces Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli in this book, alongside her partner Thomas Moore. They soon discover a link between Catherine Cordell and the man she killed (who now seems to be stalking her) and "The Surgeon".
The internal dialogue of "The Surgeon" is unnerving, but adds to the theatre and his character. His thoughts only reinforce the grotesque nature of the crimes. In my opinion, it is a clever little trick by Gerritsen.
The Surgeon is full of twists and turns. It is gruesome, unforgiving, and unapologetic in its descriptions. It is an intricately written medical thriller, which will have you hooked from the outset. Dark, complicated, and at times horrifying; but utterly unputdownable.Â
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Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date of publication: 1st January 2010
Pages: 416
My rating: 4.5Â out of 5