For Memorial Day weekend, I went to WisCon 34, the worlds leading feminist science fiction convention. I’ll write more about that later. But for travel to and from Madison, Wisconsin, I needed something light to read. Something that would be complicated enough to be interesting, yet not so complicated that I couldn’t interrupt my reading lots while running from airport gate to airport gate. When looking through my ebook library, I realized this would be perfect. I love a good police procedural.
The serial killer’s modus operandi is to duct tape women to their beds, surgically remove their uteruses while they are still awake and unanesthetized, wait a day, then slit their throats. It’s very brutal, and if you have trigger issues about male on female violence or gory mutilation, do not go near this book. Thomas Moore is the detective on the case, widowed 6 months and grieving, but known as the unflappable uncorruptible cop. Jane Rizzoli is the up and coming, uber-competent homicide detective with a well deserved chip on her shoulder over how she’s been treated in the police department. Catherine Cordell is the E.R. surgeon who treats some of the victims, and also the one who got away from a serial killer with the same m.o. in another city.
The killer is really after Catherine Cordell. Why is a whole nother story that isn’t revealed until late in the book. He taunts her with messages written in magic marker on victim’s bodies. He allowed another victim to live so that he can kill her under Cordell’s nose in E.R. And he knows details of the original killer, who is quite provably dead.
For the most part, I really enjoyed the book. It’s paced well. The police work seemed more tedious and realistic than exciting, which I like. The tension is built around the stalking behavior, with a few moments of he’s calling you from inside your house!
One thing that I ambivalent about was the budding relationship between grieving Thomas Moore and shell-shocked Catherine Cordell. While Cordell has lots and lots of good qualities, Moore seemed most attracted to her when she lost her shit and became vulnerable. I’m sure that happens in real life, but it sure seems like a bad idea to begin a relationship by having to be the emotional support immediately. The two partners don’t come in as equals. I’m not too critical of this because Gerritsen had no-nonsense Rizzoli become critical of this beginning as well. The author wasn’t portraying it as an ideal way to begin. Still, I kept wanting to scream at those two characters, Are you idiots??!
And with that, I find that I don’t really have much more to say about the book. It’s well written but well within standard crime fiction tropes. Definitely fun and readable and I’ll look for more Gerritsen.
Title: The Surgeon
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Cover creator: Carl Galian (designer)
Series: Rizzoli/Isles; 1
Imprint / publisher: Ballantine Books / Random House
Format: PDF download
Length: 350 p.
Publication date: 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-44784-5
Hmm. Non-anesthetized uterus removal? Charming. I missed hetting her new book at BEA and I haven’t read her before, and I have mixed feeling about it now. I didn’t realize her books would be so brutal. I haven’t heard anything like this since reading America Psycho.
I dunno about her other books as this is the first I’ve read of her. But it is brutal even though she doesn’t go into awful detail.