The Sinner by
Tess Gerritsen
hbk out September 03
Published by Bantam
at £12.99
Gerritsen is one of the new wave of bestselling women thriller writers whose books are gutsy, energetic and shocking. If you like forensic detail, you’ll love this. Post mortems, crime scenes and the state of murder victims are relayed in all their grim and grisly aspect, though filtered through the voices of the two principal characters: Boston based medical examiner, Dr Maura Isles, and detective Jane Rizzoli. What Gerritsen does particularly well is to combine clever plotting and unexpected twists with characters who are three dimensional, who we care about and who take the book beyond a simple paint by numbers chiller. Maura Isles is elegant, and efficient, calm in the face of butchery. She is known as the Queen of Death. Rizzoli is driven by anger, she is hard-edged, sometimes foul-mouthed and resistant to all attempts to get her to lower her guard.
The Sinner is Gerritsen’s third title and it opens with a savage murder at a cloistered convent. The nuns have no idea why one of their number has been killed but an autopsy reveals a surprise. A second corpse, discovered in an abandoned building, takes the investigation in a new direction. Alongside their work both women face difficult challenges in their personal lives and are facing choices that could change their lives. Rizzoli and Isles get ever closer to the mystery behind the slayings and events culminate in an adrenalin fuelled climax.
M.E.N. 20.9.03
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
The Sinner by
Tess Gerritsen
