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Tess Gerritsen has always, since the first time I encountered her writing in THE SURGEON, seemed to me to be the very embodiment of a Goddess of Grue. Perhaps this is understandable since, as a medical doctor, she is more comfortable than the rest of us with innards and the sloshy red stuff we have circulating around our bodies. THE BONE GARDEN seems to have given her even more scope for paddling through the plasma and galumphing through the gore. Not only does she have a serial killer roaming through the streets of Boston but she also has the barely describable horrors of all the possible ills attendant upon childbirth. Julia Hamill is attempting to recover from her divorce. Having bought an old house, she is doing her best to begin making it presentable and welcoming. While trying to conquer a difficult part of the garden, Julia unearths a skeleton. It is an old skeleton, dating back to the 19th century, unlike the body of the previous owner, a woman in her 90s, whose corpse had also lain amongst the grass in Julia's garden. The action of the novel alternates between the present day and the 19th century, where the history of Rose Connolly is related. Rose's sister dies after a difficult childbirth but Rose won't permit the babe, Meggie, to be placed as an orphan. Instead, Rose pays a woman to care for her whilst attempting to support herself. At the same time, Norris Marshall is a medical student, together with friends including Oliver Wendell Holmes. To eke out a precarious living, Norris has taken up illegal employment as a resurrectionist, a man who digs up recently interred corpses, for the delectation and education of medical students such as himself. But then a killer begins working in the area and Norris falls under suspicion. As previously indicated, the book contains its share of horrific descriptions but, to my mind, at least, does not have the customary strength of plotting one has come to expect of Tess Gerritsen. Perhaps what must have been a tremendous amount of research has tended to take the author's mind off the rest of the story for the tale seemed less gripping than Gerritsen's usual offerings. Gerritsen's characterisations are done with her customary skill but I felt there were a few loose ends that might have been tied off with more panache. While Maura Isles, one of Gerritsen's familiar characters, makes a brief appearance, Detective Jane Rizzoli does not. I can't help but wonder if the dauntless duo had featured in the story, it might not have had more of a gripping quality than it does.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, September 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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