The Surgeon

Tess Gerritsen

Average Rating 6/10 (1 Review)

In her most masterful novel of medical suspense, New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen creates a villain of unforgettable evil - and the one woman who can catch him before he kills again.

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 a well-earned reputation as a top trauma surgeon.

Cordell's careful facade is about to crack as this new killer recreates, 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 savours - the secret fears of every woman he kills.

Filled with the authentic detail that is the trademark of this doctor turned author... and peopled with rich and complex characters - from the ER to the squad room to the city morgue - here is a thriller of unprecedented depth and suspense. Exposing the shocking link between those who kill and cure, punish and protect, The Surgeon is Tess Gerritsen's most exciting accomplishment yet.

'If you've never read Gerritsen, figure in the price of electricity when you buy your first novel by her, cause baby, you are going to be up all night.'

'This book is going to make you squirm... a taut, well-placed and throughly realistic thriller'

Review by Ben Macnair (300916) Rating (6/10)

Review by Ben Macnair
Book Source: Not Known
Rating 6/10
This is the book that introduces the character of Detective Jane Rizzoli to the world. If you are expecting a story of comfortable, gore free crime solving, such as in the Rizzoli and Isles Television series, then this is not the book for you.

Instead, what we get is a serious Crime procedural, based around the unlikable character of Rizzoli, and her partner Thomas Moore. They are looking for 'The Surgeon', a serial killer who has been preying on single women in Boston. His victims are alive as he slowly kills them. He has knowledge of how to inflict pain, to cause the most distress to all of his victims, with particularly nasty forms of death, and torture, and is in these scenes that Gerritsen shows that her years of practice and training as a medical doctor were not wasted.

The work of 'The Surgeon' has a lot in common with the M.O of another predatory killer, but he was shot and killed by his last victim, or was he? As the body count mounts up, they reach out to the last victim, Catherine Cordell, who knows more than she is letting on.

As well as the third person perspective of the story, we also see things from the viewpoints of Rizzoli, Moore, and their teams, the victims, and 'The Surgeon' himself, as he is used as a narrative device, as much as the rest of the characters. Although we learn something about him, it would have been good to have had some of his backstory.

So, although this book is not for everyone, with horrific scenes that would give writers such as Val McDermid, Stephen King, and James Herbert a run for their money, this is a well-paced, well thought out police thriller that would appeal to most fans of the genre, in all of its multifaceted forms.
Ben Macnair (30th September 2016)