“Violence leaves a mark, a psychic stain that can never be scrubbed away with mere soap and bleach. In a neighborhood as insular as Chinatown, everyone would remember what had happened…. Even if this building were torn down and another erected in its place, this bloodied ground would remain forever haunted in the minds of those who knew its ugly past.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (JUL 5, 2011)

Forensic pathologist Dr. Maura Isles angers the members of the Boston Police Department when she testifies against Officer Wayne Graff. Dr. Isles maintains that Graff’s savage beating of alleged cop killer Fabian Dixon led to the suspect’s death. Although Maura knows that she will be ostracized because of her testimony, she tells the truth as she sees it: “I only concern myself with the facts…wherever they may lead,” she says. Her attitude irritates her good friend, Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli, who can understand why Graff “lost it.”

Tess Gerritsen’s The Silent Girl is about the evil that men do, the grieving relatives who are left behind to mourn their dead, and the thirst for vengeance. The main plot centers around a tragedy that occurred nineteen years earlier, leaving five people dead, including the alleged perpetrator, a Chinese cook named Wu Weimin. The incident was known as the Red Phoenix massacre, named after the restaurant in Chinatown where the carnage took place. The police close the case, after deciding that Wu shot the others and then turned the gun on himself. However, the widow of one of the victims defends Wu; she insists that he was a kind and unaggressive man who would never hurt anyone.

Dr. Isles, Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli, and Jane’s partner, Barry Frost, find themselves in the thick of a complex case that begins when the unidentified corpse of a beautiful woman is found on a roof. Her neck is slashed and her hand is severed by a very sharp implement. Who was she, and why was she murdered this way? As the investigation proceeds, it eventually becomes clear that there is some connection between this killing and those that were blamed almost two decades ago on Wu Weimin.

The Silent Girl is sharply written, engrossing, fast-paced, and suspenseful. The author skillfully incorporates intriguing information about Chinese history, martial arts, and forensics into her story. The well-defined characters include Iris Fang, fifty-five, who runs a martial arts academy and serves as an occasional first person narrator; her talented and loyal associate, Bella Li; Johnny Tam an ambitious young Chinese detective; and Patrick Dion, the grieving father of a seventeen-year-old girl, Charlotte, who disappeared a month after her mother was gunned down in the Red Phoenix restaurant.

As the investigation proceeds, Rizzoli and her colleagues become increasingly baffled. No matter how much information they uncover, the most important facts remain stubbornly elusive. It is almost as if the detectives are chasing ghosts. Gerritsen skillfully wraps everything up with an electrifying conclusion that raises a provocative question: Is taking the law into one’s own hands ever justified?

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 161 readers
PUBLISHER:	Ballantine Books (July 5, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Tess Gerritsen
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Ice Cold Vanish Body Double The Apprentice

Bibliography:

Medical Thrillers:

• Harvest (1996)
• Life Support (1997)
• Bloodstream (1998)
• Gravity (1999)
• Presumed Guilty (2009)
• Stolen (2011)

Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles Series:

• The Surgeon (2001)
• The Apprentice (2002)
• The Sinner (2003)
• Body Double (2004)
• Vanish (2005)
• The Mephisto Club (2006)
• The Bone Garden (2007)
• The Keepsake (2008)
• Ice Cold (2010) (Published in the UK as The Killing Place)
• The Silent Girl (2011)
• Last to Die (August 2012)

Romance Novels:

• Call After Midnight (1987) **
• Whistleblower (1992) **
• In Their Footsteps (1994) *
• Peggy Sue Got Murdered (1994)
• Under the Knife (1987) **
• Keeper of the Bride (1996) **

* Originally published as the Tavistock Series

** Originally published as an Harlequin Intrique

“Something had caused the previous occupants of this settlement to flee, leaving doors unlocked, windows open, and meals uneaten. Something so terrible it had caused them to abandon cherished pets to cold and starvation. Was it still here, the thing that drove them from this place? Or was there nothing at all there except her own dark fantasies, born of fear and isolation?”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (JUL 1, 2010)

In Tess Gerritsen’s Ice Cold, forty-two year old medical examiner Maura Isles is heartbroken. She is in a relationship with Daniel Brophy, a Catholic priest. However, their year-long affair has not brought either of them much happiness. Daniel is reluctant to give up his calling, and Maura is frustrated with his inability to make up his mind. After spending the night together, they part. Maura flies from Boston to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to attend a medical conference. There, she meets a former classmate, pathologist Doug Comley, who is divorced and has a thirteen year-old-daughter, Grace. He asks Maura to accompany him and his friends on a trip to a cross-country ski lodge. She agrees, but soon regrets her decision. Doug loses his way in the snowy landscape, and they end up stranded. When Daniel and Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli do not hear from Maura and are unable to contact her, they fear that something terrible has happened.

Ice Cold is an action-packed thrill ride with intriguing characters we care about. Maura is courageous but realistic; she knows that if she is not rescued soon, she will probably die in this frozen wilderness. Jane and her husband, Gabriel Dean, an ex-Marine and an FBI agent, are determined to find their friend, but they will face obstacles more formidable than the horrendous weather. Meanwhile, Daniel is wracked with guilt over the way he has treated the woman he loves, especially when he realizes that he may never see her again. This is a story about survival in the wilderness under extreme conditions, the limits of romantic love, and the dangers of bending one’s will to a charismatic cult leader. Jeremiah Goode has created a sect with hundreds of followers who slavishly adhere to his decrees, some of which are rather repellant. Maura’s struggle to survive will become interconnected with the fate of Goode and his supporters.

Gerritsen maintains suspense by shifting back and forth from Maura’s travails to Jane and Gabriel Dean’s efforts to save her. Unexpectedly, Maura discovers that she is being shadowed, but who is following her and what does he want? The conclusion, which is a humdinger, includes one or two surprising twists and turns. Gerritsen has written an absorbing and chilling story that will keep readers turning pages well into the night.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 169 readers
PUBLISHER:	Ballantine Books; 1 edition (June 29, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Tess Gerritsen
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Tess Gerritsen
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Silent Girl Vanish Body Double The Apprentice

Bibliography:

Medical Thrillers:

• Harvest (1996)
• Life Support (1997)
• Bloodstream (1998)
• Gravity (1999)
• Presumed Guilty (2009)
• Stolen (2011)

Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles Series:

• The Surgeon (2001)
• The Apprentice (2002)
• The Sinner (2003)
• Body Double (2004)
• Vanish (2005)
• The Mephisto Club (2006)
• The Bone Garden (2007)
• The Keepsake (2008)
• Ice Cold (2010) (Published in the UK as The Killing Place)
• The Silent Girl (2011)
• Last to Die (August 2012)

Romance Novels:

• Call After Midnight (1987) **
• Whistleblower (1992) **
• In Their Footsteps (1994) *
• Peggy Sue Got Murdered (1994)
• Under the Knife (1987) **
• Keeper of the Bride (1996) **

* Originally published as the Tavistock Series

** Originally published as an Harlequin Intrique