In which Ruth reads another gruesome whodunnit

Well thanks to Canon Malcolm Round, I now have another list of books to put on my ‘to read’ pile. For at the Clergy Conference we discovered that we shared a passion for the whodunnit, especially if there is a good old forensic pathologist to add some gruesomeness. I didn’t know that the TV show Rizzoli and Isles actually were books first but Malcolm highly recommended them.

The first book, The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen, features Rizzoli but no sign of Isles, the pathologist. (I’m told she doesn’t appear until about Book 3.)  This book is more about the relationships between Rizzoli, the cop, and her partner Moore. But it is also about the relationship between Moore and the beautiful doctor who is being stalked by the killer. In fact, sometimes I wondered if Rizzoli had been forgotten altogether but I’m guessing her role develops in the books. She is gutsy and prickly, and the men in the department don’t take kindly to a female detective in their midst. So there is a bit of that Jane Tennyson thing going on too, where male cops undermine her all the time.

The great thing about this book is that it is written by a doctor so there is real knowledge about medical procedures and I did enjoy that. The killer targets lone women and then tortures them ritualistically before finishing them off. All rather gory but the suspense was great and I finished it in one go. (That was my day off, dear friends: a bit of dusting then a long read… heaven on earth!)

4 stars.

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