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CORRIDOR OF MYSTERY |
DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 2, No. 39 |
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REVIEWS A GRISLY THRILLER TESS GERRITSEN'S THE SURGEON |
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Real-life physician keeps
churning out real thrillers
of TheColumnists.com
IF YOU'RE A WOMAN, it's bad enough to hear there's a violent rapist breaking into the homes of single women at night and savagely violating them. But, believe me, you don't want to hear about the major surgeries he performs on his victims or that he likes to stick around for the "post-op" phase, watching them slowly, painfully die.
Today they will find her body, the killer tells us in the opening line of the book, then goes on to explain how he'd love to be there, watching the police fruitlessly search for clues. But, of course, there won't be any.
This is the essential gimmick of Tess Gerritsen's tense new thriller "The Surgeon" (Ballantine, $24.95). Once again, I'm amazed at how successful female mystery writers have become at out-grossing the male authors of "gross-out" thrillers. This is a genuine nail-biter and, upon occasion, stomach-turner.
Gerritsen knows what she's doing, too, because she's a real-life doctor who gave up her practice to write thrillers like "Harvest," "Life Support" and "Bloodstream." When her villain begins to slice and dice, it seems awfully authentic--and the medical sleuthing that follows also has the clear ring of reality.
In
this novel, Boston police detective Thomas Moore is one of those
assigned to solving the case of The Surgeon, the serial killer
whose specialty is removing the reproductive organs of his victims
and taking certain "souvenirs." The killer's precision
work with his scalpels has encouraged detectives to believe he
may be a demented surgeon on the loose.
The only link between the victims, though, is the fact they've
all been victims of rapes in the past--some of them never reported
to police.
One former rape victim is the book's female hero, Dr. Catherine Cordell. Certain leads convince Detective Moore that she may be on The Surgeon's list of "unfinished business." The deeper Moore looks into Dr. Cordell's involvement, the more uncanny the case becomes. For one thing, the man who raped her two years ago in another state also was performing similar "surgeries" on his victims.
Yet Moore knows The Surgeon can't be the same man who nearly killed Dr. Cordell two years ago because she managed to escape him, grabbed a handgun and shot him dead! So, is the new "Surgeon" a copy-cat killer? Hardly. You see, the public never knew the intimate details of the crimes committed by the original "Surgeon," so how would the new killer have any pattern to follow?
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internist who gave up her practice to write medical thrillers. |
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Gerritsen builds up a strong relationship between Detective Moore,
a widower still grievimg over his dead wife, and Dr. Cordell,
a strong and independent professional woman who's suddenly feeling
extremely vulnerable as she realizes The Surgeon may be coming
for her any day now.
The author also gives us one other strong ancillary character: Feminist homicide detective Jane Rizzoli, who's determined to solve the case of The Surgeon because she believes it finally will silence the host of hostile male cops who have isolated her and made her feel like an unwanted interloper in "their" department.
Rizzoli is an obnoxious person who's pretty hard to take even on her good days because she's resentful of even the "good guys" in her unit, like Detective Moore. But you can't help rooting for her when she finally gets a lead that brings her into The Surgeon's lair--provoking his vengeful wrath.
There are lots of medical thrillers out there--it's now a full-fledged sub-genre of the mystery, just like the legal thriller--but too many of them are paint-by-the-numbers jobs like the more recent work of Robin Cook. Tess Gerritsen brings the scent of realism to her thrillers, so hers stand tall and deserve our attention--and "The Surgeon" is one of her best.
© 2001 by Ron Miller.
The photo of Tess Gerritsen is © by Brian Velenchenko.The
book cover is reproduced courtesy of Ballantine Books.
You
can comment on this column or contact Ron Miller with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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