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It's Christmas time in Boston, but Medical Examiner Maura Isles isn't thinking of the holiday. A brutal attack on two nuns in a chapel at Graystone Abbey has left one Sister dead and her companion in a coma. Both Isles and Det. Jane Rizzoli are sickened by the viciousness of the crime. Rizzoli's reactions are heightened by the fact that the dead nun was recently pregnant. The unmarried Rizzoli is in the first trimester of an unplanned pregnancy and of two minds on what to do about it. When she finds Sister Camille's dead infant wrapped in flowers in a blue blanket at the bottom of a pond, she becomes furious at what she assumes to be infanticide. Maura calms Jane when she points out that the baby boy was anacephalic, born without a brain, and was thus already dead when born. The care surrounding the watery burial tells Maura that the child was loved by his mother, regardless of how he was conceived. While Rizzoli hunts for a murderer, Maura investigates the young nun's family. DNA testing soon confirms that Camille, a victim of childhood abuse who fled to the convent rather than remain in a terrible situation, was raped by her own father. Romance enters the story when the father of Rizzoli's baby, FBI agent Gabriel Dean, and Maura's ex-husband, Dr. Victor Banks, both show up in Boston. Dean is investigating the murder of Howard Redfield, an executive at Octagon Chemicals who was about to reveal evidence of the company's complicity in an environmental accident in India. Redfield had been seen at Greystone Abbey where he attempted to visit Sister Ursula, the second victim of the attack. Victor Banks's return is shrouded in mystery. Is he really trying to woo back Maura, or does his true interest lie in protecting his humanitarian organization, a recipient of funding by Octagon? Maura falls for Victor's charms, but then has doubts when she performs an autopsy on a woman found shot to death in an abandoned building, the skin on her face surgically removed by the killer. Lab tests reveal shocking evidence of the woman's identity that links her to both Victor and Sister Ursula. When Ursula takes a turn for the worse, Maura rushes to the hospital. There, she confides in the wrong person. Her own life now hangs in the balance as the killer attempts to silence the only woman who can tie him to the murders. This abridged version of the book is read by OBIE award-winner Dennis Boutsikaris, who does a magnificent job of carrying the suspense from chapter to chapter. The clues fall nicely into place as Gerritsen leads us from horror to disgust to ultimate satisfaction with the ending. The author effectively weaves multiple plot lines into one chilling story while creating two female protagonists who continually win the sympathy of the reader/listener. A fine effort from a writer skilled in her trade.
Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, September 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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