I needed to figure out a way to start reading series where I am not current or the series is finished but haven’t read them yet. So it’s a way to commit myself to read my backlist, particularly series.
Another police procedural series is the Rizzoli & Isles I want to read. I have watched a few of the tv series but it is very different.
Vanish by Tess Gerritsen Narrator: Susan Denaker
Series: Rizzoli & Isles #5
Published by Random House Audio on August 23, 2005
Genres: Mystery
Length: 11 hours, 9 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Library
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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 timely and relentless new thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Body Double.
A nameless, beautiful woman appears to be just another corpse in the morgue. An apparent suicide, she lies on a gurney, awaiting the dissecting scalpel of medical examiner Maura Isles. But when Maura unzips the body bag and looks down at the body, she gets the fright of her life. The corpse opens its eyes.
Very much alive, the woman is rushed to the hospital, where with shockingly cool precision, she murders a security guard and seizes hostages . . . one of them a pregnant patient, Jane Rizzoli.
Who is this violent, desperate soul, and what does she want? As the tense hours tick by, Maura joins forces with Jane’s husband, FBI agent Gabriel Dean, to track down the mysterious killer’s identity. When federal agents suddenly appear on the scene, Maura and Gabriel realize that they are dealing with a case that goes far deeper than just an ordinary hostage crisis.
4.5 hearts
We begin with alternating point of views between a victim and Maura in the morgue. Maura finds a body in the cooler and it turns out she is not dead. She is rushed to the hospital. Jane is busy testifying in court but ends up at the hospital after her water broke.
The victim is rightfully afraid the abusers will try to kill her. She ends up in a hostage situation at the hospital, and Jane ends up as a hostage. Vanish is a very detailed and intense story with Maura and Jane’s point of view on one hand and the abuse victims on the other. It’s disgusting what happens to the victims.
It’s more sad because it’s fairly realistic. An excellent telling of a difficult world.
The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen Narrator: Kathe Mazur
Series: Rizzoli & Isles #6
Published by Random House Audio on September 12, 2006
Genres: Mystery
Length: 11 hours, 15 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Library
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm, Barnes & Noble, Apple
The Latin is scrawled in blood at the scene of a young woman’s brutal murder: I HAVE SINNED. It’s a chilling Christmas greeting for Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli, who swiftly link the victim to controversial celebrity psychiatrist Joyce O’Donnell–Jane’s professional nemesis and member of a sinister cabal called the Mephisto Club.
On tony Beacon Hill, the club’s acolytes devote themselves to the analysis of evil: Can it be explained by science? Does it have a physical presence? Do demons walk the earth? Drawing on a wealth of dark historical data and mysterious religious symbolism, the Mephisto scholars aim to prove a startling theory: that Satan himself exists among us. With the grisly appearance of a corpse on their doorstep, it’s clear that someone–or something–is indeed prowling the city. Soon, the members of the club begin to fear the very subject of their study. Could this maniacal killer be one of their own–or have they inadvertently summoned an evil entity from the darkness?
The Mephisto Club is one strange book. There is a serial killer who is part of a group of special killers with a mythology. The club is a group that hunts these “demons.” Jane is called to one of the murders on Christmas Eve and finds more connected cases. She does work with Maura quite a bit on this one, which I thought I would enjoy but I didn’t. They aren’t in sync.
Jane has personal issues going on with her parents. Maura is falling for the wrong guy as usual. There wasn’t really any closure to the personal storylines, maybe in the next book.
The serial killer in this story was somewhat orphaned when his father died. He wanted his mother to come for him but in the meantime he goes to live with his uncle who has 2 kids. We get the point of view of Lily who is one of the kids. It is twelve years later and she is running and hiding in Europe. She believes the killer has reincarnated and is after her.
I didn’t like the club butting in and dragging the investigation around and Jane didn’t either. The ending is clear and I do like that but this won’t be my favorite book in the series.
Narration:
The narrators seem to change with each book although there are some repeats in the series. They have all done a comfortable performance I am able to listen without the voices being weird or taking me out of the story. I was too focused on the story to pay more attention to the narration. I was able to listen at my newer 1.75x speed.
Listen to a clip: HERE
About Tess Gerritsen
Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her M.D.
While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, she began to write fiction and in 1987, her first novel, Call After Midnight, was published. It was just the first of 31 suspense novels that she’s written over a 36-year writing career. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift,” which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.
Tess’s first medical thriller, Harvest, was released in hardcover in 1996, and it marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Her novels have hit bestseller lists ever since. Among her titles are Gravity, The Surgeon, Vanish, The Bone Garden, and The Spy Coast. Her books have been translated into 40 languages, and more than 40 million copies have been sold around the world.
She has won both the Nero Wolfe Award (for Vanish) and the Rita Award (for The Surgeon). Critics around the world have praised her novels as “Pulse-pounding fun” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “Scary and brilliant” (Toronto Globe and Mail), and “Polished, riveting prose” (Chicago Tribune). Publishers Weekly has dubbed her the “medical suspense queen” and Time Magazine named her novel The Surgeon one of the best mystery/thriller novels ever written.
Her series of novels featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TNT television series “Rizzoli & Isles,” starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.
She is also a filmmaker. She and her son Josh produced a feature-length documentary, “Magnificent Beast,” about the ancient origins of the pig taboo. It aired on PBS channels around the country. Their previous film, “Island Zero”, was a feature-length horror movie that was released in 2018.
She lives in Maine.
I read all types of books but my favorites are urban fantasy and romantic suspense.I like some romance and some action / adventure / mystery in everything.I like sex in my books but please, only between TWO people.Intimate conversation is equally important to the sex in a book.It lets me see the characters.The other thing I enjoy is humor.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 26-Audio
- 26-COYER
This series always catches my eye when you post up a review and I hope to get to it at some point. Sorry the club one was only so-so.
Berls rated it more highly but the topic just didn’t appeal to me and the personal relationships didn’t really progress.
Love this series. I think she might have settled on a narrator (Tanya Eby) after book seven. Nice reviews, Anne💜
I’m enjoying it. It will be nice to have a settled narrator if she isn’t too far different from all the earlier books that already are in my audio memory.
I guess most adaptations they change a lot, but I didn’t love the TV series so I never watched more than a few episodes. It can be strange when they change narrators. Hope you enjoy the rest of the books.
I think I’ll love it. It’s a tiny bit dated but I’m enjoying the cases and the characters.
I always forget this is a book series.
The tv and books are quite different. I like the additional detail in the books.