The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Read: 3rd January 2009
Sub-Genre: Medical Thriller

Tess Gerritsen's intimate knowledge of the medical field is once again evident in this page-turning thriller. Two years after a serial killer in Savannah almost took her life Dr.Catherine Cordell has slowly rebuilt her shattered life as a surgeon in a Boston hospital, secure in the knowledge that the killer is dead. But when two Boston women are found murdered in a similar pattern the nightmare begins. The serial killer known as 'The Surgeon' tortures his female victims, first binding them, removing their uterus while they're awake and finally slashing their throats.

This was chilling, un-put-downable and I was hooked from the beginning. The serial killer format was fairly generic but the plot twists and the depths to which Gerritsen took the story & characterisations were anything but generic. The three main characters are superbly developed, all with very real flaws, Catherine, haunted by her traumatic past, Detective Thomas Moore grieving his wife and prickly, unlikeable Detective Jane Rizzoli, fighting for recognition in a male dominated world.

Gerritsen confronts the after-effects of rape in a frank but compassionate way, her descriptions of the brutal murders leave you feeling more than a little traumatised. This is definitely not one for the faint hearted, it is a disturbing, horrifying read that gallops along at a stomach churning pace. But as a die-hard fan for this genre of fiction I am really looking forward to reading Gerritsen's next novels in this series; The Apprentice & The Sinner.

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