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Title: The Sinner by Dennis Boutsikaris, Tess Gerritsen ISBN: 0-7393-0338-4 Publisher: Random House Audio Pub. Date: 19 August, 2003 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 5 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.81 (37 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Tess slept through this one
Comment: I like Tess Gerritsen. Let me start with that. The Sinner was a book that seemed rushed, though, and far below her usual high standard. Her romance roots dominated this book, and although her Jane Rizzoli has been a clear-cut character unto herself, I felt Gerritsen was still searching for the key to Isles. She spent way too much time trying to justify Isles' position in the morgue and attach some kind of higher calling or nobility to that place. In short, she doth protest too much and ended up sounding like a wannabe of Kay Scarpetta. Of course, there's only one Kay.... Medically speaking, Tess is right on her game. It was great to see what she brought to the book. But in an effort to add a lot of twists and surprises we ended up with a bad guy who wasn't believable at all. WAY too much time was spent on the romantic aspects of the characters. I mean -- even an attraction to a devoted priest was overdone. If I never hear about Isles' ebony hair and "Queen of the Dead" nickname again, it will be too soon. The church parts (priest lust aside) were going great but then they took an old, old turn and got dropped. A dreamlike opening is promising but by the time anything tied to it, I'd completely forgotten about it. And worst of all, after I finished the book I picked up The Apprentice. Right from the start, fast, hard, taut. Really, this is Tess's weakest effort since she turned to crime.
Rating: 5
Summary: Two Heroines Make the Sinner Twice as Good
Comment: Usually I can tell who the protagonist in a novel is right off the bat, lots of times just by reading the inside flap of a hard cover or the back of a paperback. But in this more than excellent thriller/mystery from Tess Gerritsen I had a hard time deciding if the novel belonged to Boston Medical Examiner Maura Isles or Police Detective Jane Rizzoli. In a well written suspense story told from the third person point of view, we get to wander around in the head of enough people to make the book interesting, usually four or five, but not so many that it becomes confusing, however we spend most of the time with our protag. In this book, however, Ms. Gerritsen seems to have divided our head time more or less equally between these two very well crafted characters and she's done it so well that it's frightening.
Dr. Maura Isles is called to a crime scene on a snowy day before Christmas, two nuns in a cloistered order have been attacked, one killed. Detective Jane Rizzoli is already at the scene. Maura discovers the dead nun was pregnant during the autopsy, Rizzoli faints, something this hard as nails cop has never done, but she can't help it, she's pregnant too and she doesn't know if she's going to keep the child as the father is FBI agent Gabriel Dean, who she had a brief affair with and is now back in Washington, a long way from Boston.
During the course of the investigation, Maura and Rizzoli discover that the surviving nun had spent two years in a leper colony in India, then later a body turns up with leprosy, however the face, hands and feet had been removed to hide the disease. Rizzoli and Maura wonder if there could be a connection and the FBI does too. Enter agent Dean to represent the Feds and further complicate Rizzoli's life. Should she tell him about the baby or not? Are the bodies related or not? And is the death of an executive from a major chemical company that just happened to have a plant upwind from that leper colony in India related? How many more are going to die? Maura gets close. The killer has his eyes on her. Can Rizzoli stop him?
There is a lot to take in in this fast moving story that will have you anticipating as much as it will have you guessing. After reading THE APRENTICE I couldn't imagine how Ms. Gerritsen could get any better, but she has, each one of her books is better than the last and that is really saying something.
Reviewed by Ken Douglas, Underpaid Writer
Rating: 3
Summary: Solid, but predictable
Comment: In Tess Gerritsen's book "The Sinner" even the Queen of the Dead, Medical Examiner Dr. Maura Isles, is disturbed by the savagery of the seemingly unrelated murders of two nuns, a faceless leper, a corporate executive, and most of a small village halfway around the world. With meticulous care and razor-like analysis Dr. Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli examine the bodies as well as their own lives searching for the secrets of the dead and find more than a few that belong to the living.
Although, not particularly suspenseful, Gerritsen's novel does create a sense of anticipation. The vignette painted in the prologue of an American businessman in a small town in India photographing a disaster area reveals key information about the murders to the reader that the investigators are not aware of. So, instead of turning page after page to see "whodunnit", it's a matter of watching the discovery process to see how the characters arrive at the answers already revealed to the reader in this solid, but predictable book.
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Title: Blow Fly: A Scarpetta Novel by Patricia Cornwell ISBN: 0399150897 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: 13 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: The Big Bad Wolf: A Novel by James Patterson ISBN: 0316602906 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 17 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Killing Hour by Lisa Gardner ISBN: 0553802526 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 15 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Keeper Of The Bride by Tess Gerritsen ISBN: 1551669358 Publisher: Mira Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Bare Bones : A Novel by Kathy Reichs ISBN: 0743233468 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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