What do you think about .........?

the book by tess gerritsen THE SURGEON

tell me if you have any other book you like or dislike i would love to know ty to all that read thisWhat do you think about .........?
"The Surgeon" is not a novel that has any intention of giving the reader an easy moment. From the beginning of the story, as first we pay a visit to the cold mind of a serial killer, are swept into the autopsy of his latest victim, only to find ourselves in the middle of an operating room emergency, the reader is granted no respite. The killer tortures the victims, first binding them, performing a waking hysterectomy, and then, after keeping them alive for a time, slashing their throats. Now Boston detectives Thomas Moore and Jane Rizzoli are unwilling partners in a grizzly murder case.

Rizzoli discovers that the killer's modus operandi has occurred once before in Savannah, Georgia. While the crimes are nearly identical there is one hitch. The last victim of the Savannah killer not only survived, but killed her tormentor. Survived to heal, leave Savannah and move to Boston where she practices as a surgeon and member of an emergency team. Dr. Catherine Cordell finds herself dealing again with a horror from her past she thought was over.



It is not long before it is clear that Catherine Cordell is the real objective of the killer, now known as the Surgeon. The killer's trail of victims defies all police efforts to identify a murderer, who seems to have risen from the dead. The increasing menace to Dr. Cordell plays against her halting relationship with Moore and Rizzoli's almost compulsive antagonism. Compared to the all too human character if his opponents, the Surgeon always appears supremely cold and efficient. As apt to dwell on Greek myth as he his to exult over his victims.



Few characters come across as completely healthy in this tale. Moore is recovering from the tragic loss of his wife, Rizzoli believes she is pitted against the entire male police establishment and Cordell struggles to free herself from the darkness that seized her in Savannah. Gerritsen deserves the credit for deploying a cast like this, and then managing to avoid giving in completely to the bleakness that haunts noir fiction. She does this with some flare, mixing in procedural, forensic and emergency room medicine in counterpoint to the primary plot.



I do feel it necessary to mention that the tale is not at all simply a grim tale of slaughter. It deals with some very serious issues. Gerritsen confronts the aftereffects of rape directly, and in very uncomfortable fashion. Those of us who have been taught to belittle or deny how devastating this kind of personal invasion really is may have a tough time dealing with these passages. I found Gerritsen's frankness illuminating but unsettling, as I think most readers will.



In retrospect I believe this may be the best suspense/serial killer novel of the 2001 crop. Although there have been some close competitors. I do not normally follow medical suspense, so I don't know how well it compares in that genre. But I can't imagine it being far from the top on most reviewers lists. While I am not normally a reader of medical thrillers, I intend to investigate more of Gerritsen's work.