Title: The Surgeon
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Publication date: 2005
Publisher: Bantam Books
Genre: Mystery, Crime, Thriller
For those of you who are familiar with the Rizzoli and Isles series, then you’d definitely have heard about this book. You see in the very first episode that it is based on this novel. After having watched all the seasons diligently, I’d downloaded a pdf version on my mobile. I’m turning to fiction after quite a while. I longed for the mystical pull of an engrossing novel, one in which I can submerge into, oblivious to the mundanities of life. I can say with certainty that I got more than I bargained for.
A psycho killer on the loose, going on a murder spree that baffles the police force, the murders of the most gruesome and grotesque nature that you feel your stomach churning with each discovered corpse, all these are the customary features of serial killer novels. This book has all this and more that keeps you hooked till the end. You’ve got terror, ingenuity, feminism, a little romance with a fair amount of twists and turns. Detective Thomas Moore from the Boston Police Department is our hero here who doggedly tries to locate the assailant who wields a scalpel in his murderous hunts. Dr Catherine Cordell who was the only surviving near-victim of a similar murderer is the key to solving the mystery of this copycat killer.
We’ve got Jane Rizzoli partnered with Moore, but sadly her physique doesn’t match with whom you’ve seen in the TV series. But wits and guts do coincide as we see it till the very end of the novel. We even have Barry Frost, the lovable cop from the series, but he plays a miniscule role here. Overlooking such discrepancies, the novel has the characters so vividly drawn that you can literally feel the pain and anguish as each one undergoes an ordeal.
Gripping, terrifying, absorbing, with many heart-thudding moments, do go for this if you’re a fan of the thriller genre.
~ Fahima .M .Y
A Writer's Retreat 