In the icy chapel of Our Lady of Divine Light, the bodies of two nuns lie battered and bleeding. Maura Isles is the Boston medical examiner called to attend the scene of this apparently motiveless attack. One of the victims is the order’s only novice, 20 year old Camille who, it is discovered at her autopsy, gave birth shortly before she was murdered; the other, Sister Ursula is left critically injured. Dr Isles and homicide detective Jane Rizzoli try and piece together the events leading up to this tragedy but there are few clues to be found amongst the elderly inhabitants of the cloistered convent. Then a savagely mutilated body is found elsewhere in the city and it transpires that there are disturbing connections between the two investigations.
Amid the narrative of murder and motive and medical examinations (so detailed I almost feel I could become a doctor) Tess Gerritsen weaves explorations of opposites: religious faith versus scientific fact; the contrasting stories of the living and the dead; integrity and pragmatism; the relationships between men and women. Trust, betrayal, vulnerability and self-protection have their place too: ‘The first stages of love were always fraught with confusion. As were the last stages of love’
This book has atmosphere, suspense, and a lot of medical distress and detail.
For those of you with a squeamish disposition (like me), be warned: the descriptions
of rat-nibbled flesh are particularly graphic.
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Ruth Wade
Other books by Tess Gerritsen include: The Surgeon, Harvest, Life Support,
Bloodstream, The Apprentice, Body Double.