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Summary: The Surgeon
Review: As an avid fan of mystery with a twist...such as Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon, the V.I. Warshawski series and just about everything written by Patricia Cornwell, I was thrilled and delighted with Tess Gerritsen's "The Surgeon". It had everything I could have imagined, and more. I couldn't put the book down: the attention to detail, the heart-pounding, edge of your seat suspense was fabulous. The best thing about my adventure with The Surgeon was that I couldn't figure out who he was until I was hit between the eyes with it...and Dr. Gerritsen's use of descriptive language and imagery was second to none. Keep these novels coming!
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Summary: Move over Robin Cook!
Review: Published in 1996, Tess Gerritsen's first medical/criminal suspense/thriller novel, Harvest, showed that she was going to give Robin Cook a run for his money in that particular writing genre. With the 2001 publication of The Surgeon, her 5th novel, she has pushed him aside to become the more exciting writer.Dr. Catherine Cordell is a young, attractive, trauma surgeon who harbors a dark secret from her past in Savannah, Georgia - her rape and near mutilation and murder and then her successful killing of her attacker. Two years later, similar attacks/murders occur around her in Boston, Massachusetts. She is asked to assist the police in their investigation and then finds that she is the real object of the killer's obsession. As a surgeon myself, I especially enjoy the detail and accuracy of the medical stuff about which Dr. Gerritsen, a former internist, writes. Her writing skills have developed with each novel, and her character development is now quite good, especially with Dr. Cordell, her surgical partner Peter Falco, the two lead detectives Thomas Moore and Jane Rizzoli, and the killer. She knows how to build to a climax, and I could not put the book down after I got halfway through. Finally, she can just flat out write a very chilling scary thriller! A final caution - this book is not for the sqeamish or younger audience due to the graphic descriptions of female mutilation.
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Summary: Tess does it again!
Review: I was concerned that Tess would have a hard time topping "Gravity." She did so, rather well, with this book. It grabbed me from the start, and the one time I put it down <smirk>, it was all I could think about. The only thing that kept me from giving it 5 stars, was that the gore level was a bit high - what with the killer being so nasty, and the "down time" in the book being held in a trauma suite - the gore is pretty much constant. Now that I've finished "The Surgeon," all I can think is... movie???
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Summary: I'm in love!
Review: The moment I sat down and opened this book I fell in love. There are not many writers like Gerritsen, the kind of writer who creates characters you fall in love with and want to see them again and again. It has been a couple months since I read this book and my memory is the complete opposite of an elephant's so I do not remember the names of characters but I do remember being totally and completely enthralled.
I was interested in how much there was to the story. You can think you know everything there is to know all you want as long as you want but the truth is you are surprised time after time again. The killer is surprisingly intelligent and the way he picks his victims is amazing and appalling. I hope to see many more books from this talented writer.
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Summary: A Compulsive read
Review: This is one of those books that you keep saying to yourself "Just one more chapter and then I'll go to sleep", only it's 2:00 am and you have to go to work the next day. Extremely well paced and riveting - a real nail-biter. Highly recommended!
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Summary: This book should come with valium!
Review: Dr. Gerritsen is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors whose books consistently keeps me up late at night! A fast read that's hard to put down, THE SURGEON thrills even during the in-between parts. It's also a disturbing book that deals with various aspects of rape. Sure, we cheer for Catherine who has found the inner strength to not let the trauma of rape take over her life. Yet you can't help but feel for those who, years later, are still haunted by their ordeal. In our PC/New Age society, it's a relief to read an honest account that isn't afraid to call a victim a victim. Definitely one of the best thrillers of 2001!
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Summary: Fantastic Medical Thriller
Review: Tess Gerritsen is closing in on Michael Crichton as one of my favorite authors. In this work she leads you through the maze of a serial killer's mind as he closes in on his prize victim. Another "can't put it down" book by Gerritsen that I would strongly recommend.
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Summary: Today They Will Know We Are Back
Review: "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. Marc Ruby for The Mystery Reader
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Summary: A very good medical thriller!
Review: Mr Gerritsen at her usual best. This book was hard to put down. It's full of suspense and holds your attention. I highly recommend.
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Summary: Nightmares Guaranteed
Review: Usually, a well-written thriller gets me hooked in the first few pages, and holds my interest throughout. This one grabbed me by the throat, shook me to the core, and violated my sleep. If one reviews the plot only, "The Surgeon" sounds like just another good offering in the serial-killer-stalks-victim genre. But it is so much more. The story follows Boston surgeon Catherine Cordell, a beautiful and brilliant doctor who fled her native South two years previously after a violent assault in which she murdered her rapist. Suddenly, the rapist seems to have risen from the dead--and is stalking Cordell relentlessly.
As he closes in on his prey, he commits a string of appallingly gruesome rape/mutilation murders on several women--again, the exact MO of the man Cordell murdered two years previously. The cops are baffled. Is this a copycat murderer? If so, how can this man know the heretofore hidden details of the previous killer's style? Every detail, down to the last horrific display of the victims, is identical to that of the previous murderer. Police detective Moore, a decent and good man, still mourning his wife who died of cancer, and a hard-bitten female cop with an impossible chip on her shoulder, team up to stop the killer before he commits any more atrocities. But therein lies the problem: The killer seems to be invisible. Despite the very bloody and unspeakable mayhem he wreaks, he leaves no trace of himself: no DNA, no fingerprints, nothing. He simply seems to vanish into thin air. But WE know this murderer. We don't know who he is, but we are privy to the chilling and insane entries into his private journal. And in this way we become part of his sick fantasies, as unwilling to do so as his intended prize: Catherine Cordell. "The Surgeon" is the first and only book of its genre to ever give me nightmares. Like the victims in the story, I was drawn into the killer's horrible mind and could not escape until the last page was over. I recommend this book as a classic of its kind: superb writing, tense, nail-biting suspense, and a mystery that never falters.
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