The Surgeon - Tess Gerritsen

He slips into their homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, unaware of the horrors they soon will endure. The precision of the killer’s methods suggests he is a deranged man of medicine, propelling the Boston newspapers and the frightened public to name him “The Surgeon.”


The cops’ only clue rests with another surgeon, the victim of a nearly identical crime. Two years ago, Dr. Catherine Cordell fought back and killed her attacker before he could complete his assault. Now she hides her fears of intimacy behind a cool and elegant exterior and well-earned reputation as a top trauma surgeon.

Cordell’s careful façade is about to crack as this new killer re-creates, with chilling accuracy, the details of Cordell’s own ordeal. With every new murder he seems to be taunting her, cutting ever closer, from her hospital to her home. Her only comfort comes from Thomas Moore, the detective assigned to the case. But even Moore cannot protect Cordell from a brilliant hunter who somehow understands-and savors-the secret fears of every woman he kills.

Another author that had been recommended to me repeatedly in the past, Tess Gerritsen has written several medical thrillers. This is the first book in the Jane Rizzoli / Maura Isles series and I suppose what made me grab it now was the fact that I caught a few episodes of the Rizzoli isles series on TV and got curious. The books seem totally different from that show but in the end that maybe just be a good thing!

Jane Rizzoli is the only female cop in the Homicides Unit. She works hard to be accepted by her colleagues, not always successfully, and she keeps her distance from all of them, including her partner, Moore. Then they are both called to a homicide scene of a particularly horrifying murder, a murder that maybe be a copy cat of crimes that happened a few years before.

As this is a medical thriller the authors describes the crimes in great detail, some details are truly chilling but I do like these type of story very much. Despite the book blurb seeming more about Moore and Cordell's relationship I thought it was a lot more about Rizzoli and Moore and the killer. Rizzoli comes across as a particularly hardened character, not that she doesn't have her reasons, but it doesn't make her particularly attractive to the reader. Moore comes across a more sympathetic figure and if I hadn't read before that Gerritsen was planning to kill Rizzoli at first I would have had a hard time understanding how this is supposedly a book about her. She is a good character mind you, but always with a chip on her shoulder that sometimes interferes with her work, and is not given enough "screen" time to make it obvious that she is the main character.

Having said that this is a book I really enjoyed. There was almost a sort of cat and mouse game between killer and detectives. We follow the logic of the investigation, how they gather the clues, the forensic conclusions and the final chase after the criminal. With no holes in the plot, no easy solutions and a quick pace. Really well done I think and definitely the beginning of a series that looks promising. I can't wait to focus solely on Rizzoli and seeing Maura Isles appear on the scene!

Grade: 4.5/5