Pros: Intense, fast moving story from beginning to end; well-written.
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: Good cop story, good M.E. story, good Political conspiracy story - suspense all around. Interesting characters, and will keep you guessing.
bonnieleigh's Full Review: Tess Gerritsen - Vanish
This is the first Tess Gerritsen novel I've read, and it certainly won't be the last. Gerritsen is a former practicing internist who switched careers to writing in order to have more time at home with her family. I didn't know this when I first got this book, but having some medical career background myself, I find that I am constantly enthralled with these doctors-turned-novelists, and this author's writing is brisk and riveting, so I'll add her to my list of authors whose works I'll search out.
Vanish is more of a political thriller than a medical one, but there's plenty of medical detail to hold the interest of us ER or Michael Palmer fans. The main known "good guys" in this story are Maura, the Medical Examiner; Jane, a pregnant Boston cop; and her husband Gabriel, an FBI agent. There are other good guys, but they're pretty hard to label until the very end, so I won't spoil that for you. And there are bad guys - I mean seriously bad, bad guys, galore.
The book takes off right from the beginning when we find Maura alone in the morgue after a long day of autopsies. She hears a faint rustle, and discovers a body that is zipped in a body bag awaiting autopsy the next morning is - well, not exactly ready for autopsy, by reason of the fact that the "body" is still alive! After having spent 8 or so hours in the morgue's cooler, there is very little life left in this cold body, but with quick action the young lady is rescued and brought back from the brink of death (it also helps that the hospital is just across the street). You can imagine the scare it gives the M.E. to realize that such a mistake had been made; that she COULD have been cutting into a live body instead of a corpse, due to a fluke mis-diagnosis. But that ain't the half of it! As the plot thickens, she, and several others in search of truth, have WAY more awful things to be anxious about.
There is a tense hostage situation that involves the Jane Doe formerly known as DOA, once she is sufficiently resuscitated to take over a section of the hospital and hostages that include Detective Jane, now in labor. Oddly enough, special agents and interested parties start coming out of the woodwork to "help" control this hostage situation. This is where it gets really hard to discern who's wearing what color hat. Who's crazy and who's sane? You know, even paranoid people may have real enemies....
The plot has multiple twists, and plenty of questions that just need to be answered as the story unfolds. Seemingly unrelated incidents are intimately related to one another, and it is clear that, at least, some big corporation or entity is going to great lengths to cover up something - but what exactly: Meanwhile, Jane's rapid transformation from Detective to Mommy provides a great subplot full of drama and pathos, and whereas most of the book is somewhat hard-core police procedural and political thriller, the struggles and lack of confidence of a new mother are perfectly captured by this author; cop or secretary or burger-flipper, moms will identify at least in part with Jane's dilemmas.
I happened upon the book in large print, and I must say it was actually easier to read it that way. I can see well enough to read regular print, but the large print edition was easier for me to read in bed with dim light, and tired my eyes out less than usual. I zipped through it in two nights, which is fast for me these days. It held my interest at all times, and many faster readers will consume it in one long sitting, I imagine. The writing is not flamboyant, but is descriptive. The action is splendid, the characters are developed enough for us to establish a bond with them, and the writing moves right along without getting in the way. There were a couple of editorial mistakes (very minor) but regrettably, that is par for the course these days, even from major publishers.
One warning: The subject matter does involve some sex-related crimes, so will perhaps be too explicit for the faint-hearted. But considering the crimes involved, the text is not unnecessarily graphic nor prurient. For the most part, it could be made into a TV movie without major censorship, just an "Adult Content" or "Adult Theme" label.
If you like suspense, medical thrillers, political thrillers, conspiracy theories, or just plain keep-those-pages-turning novels, this is a great bet!
A blessed event becomes a nightmare for pregnant homicide detective Jane Rizzoli when she finds herself on the wrong side of a hostage crisis in this ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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