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Tess Gerritsen's medical background perhaps makes it inescapable that invidious comparisons be drawn between her work and that of contemporary crime fiction writers such as Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell. Certainly like them she does not cavil at splashing around the gore, nor does she spare the action but I have, over the years, formed the opinion that her writing probes perhaps a little deeper than that of those other women writing about fictional things medical, that she, in fact, brings a more thoughtful approach to her narratives. Gerritsen is the author of Harvest, Life Support, Bloodstream, Gravity, The Surgeon, The Apprentice and now The Sinner, the last three of which feature Boston detective Jane Rizzoli. This latest Gerritsen oeuvre opens in India, with a prologue showing Angus Redfield enduring intense heat, discomfort and danger in an attempt to document the site of a mass funeral pyre. Chapter One, by contrast, switches to the intense cold of a Boston winter and the unpleasant location of the medical examiner's office with Maura Isles, aka The Queen of the Dead, dabbling in a corpse's innards. A phone call summons her to Graystones Abbey, a Catholic convent, where the body of a young nun together with a badly injured older nun has been found. Detective Jane Rizzoli is investigating. Rizzoli and Isles, both brought up Catholic, find themselves facing their own backgrounds in order to solve the case. Incredibly, they find links to other murders within their city as well as to what has occurred in Andhra Pradesh. Their professional life cannot be lived separate from their personal life for both women find their one-time (and perhaps current) loves enmeshed in the investigation. Rizzoli is horrified to discover that Special Agent Gabriel Dean, the man with whom she had had what she now regarded as a brief fling but whose involvement with her might needs be extended, has been sent from Washington to investigate aspects of the murders. Gerritsen's complicating the murdered nun's life by having made her a recent mother enables the author to expound on the humanity of religious, despite their vows, as well as family dynamics and just plain human cruelty. The author's medical background lends authenticity to her narrative. She examines various sad aspects of modern life, not the least being corporate crime, the tragedy of those suffering from Hansen's Disease, or leprosy, the sad decline of once thriving religious communities who no longer attract new members, the alienation of minority groups within a population not to mention the effect on their domestic lives of women's professional careers. This book contains lots of horrors, at every level. As previously indicated, Gerritsen does not shy away from depicting physical horrors; she may even be considered profligate with the personal problems she inflicts on her characters. The action of the book is fast-paced and the resolution a surprise. It is unfortunate that the motive for the murders is quite believable. Gerritsen write a hugely involving tale. The reader is left with a craving for more knowledge about the life of detective Rizzoli for which the only medicine can be a further novel by this talented author. Note: This review is based on the Australian edition.
Reviewed by Denise Wels, August 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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