Saturday, July 9, 2011

Tess Gerritsen--Silent girl (Rizzoli & Isles)

Every crime scene tells a story. Some keep you awake at night. Others haunt your dreams. The grisly display homicide cop Jane Rizzoli finds in Boston’s Chinatown will do both.

In the murky shadows of an alley lies a female’s severed hand. On the tenement rooftop above is the corpse belonging to that hand, a red-haired woman dressed all in black, her head nearly severed. Two strands of silver hair -- not human -- cling to her body. They are Rizzoli’s only clues, but they’re enough for her and medical examiner Maura Isles to make the startling discovery: that this violent death had a chilling prequel.

Nineteen years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide in a Chinatown restaurant left five people dead. But one woman connected to that massacre is still alive: a mysterious martial arts master who knows a secret she dares not tell, a secret that lives and breathes in the shadows of Chinatown. A secret that may not even be human. Now she’s the target of someone, or something, deeply and relentlessly evil.

Cracking a crime resonating with bone-chilling echoes of an ancient Chinese legend, Rizzoli and Isles must outwit an unseen enemy with centuries of cunning -- and a swift, avenging blade.


{5 stars}
Another outstanding thriller. Gerritsen writes stories so layered, they are like a puzzle box. The pieces are always shifting and revealing new theories, new aspects, and just when you think you know who the bad guy is and what the true story is, she slides the pieces and you have more questions. And even when you get to the end and the puzzle is finally together, she throws one last surprise into the mix. I love it! It keeps you on the edge and turning page after page. I can never put her books down.

In this one, Jane is the focus and she is on the case of a murdered woman on a roof. The murder is so bizarre that it opens up questions to a mass murder-suicide from 19 years ago. And so the pieces slide. We only see a small peek at Maura in this one, and an even smaller peek at "Rat", the boy who saved Maura in the previous book. I was happy to get an update on how he was doing. But this book solely focuses on Jane's case and, as usual, Jane's risk taking, puts her in mortal danger again. Jane's team is still along for the ride, and she has a new team member who has more knowledge than anyone can guess. I don't want to give too much away, so I will say this was a brilliant thriller. If you haven't read any of her books, this one can stand alone. But you should start at the beginning so you know the history of all the players.

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