The Surgeon

July 2, 2001
A creepy cerebral serial killer vaguely reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter pursues a charismatic female doctor in this thoroughly satisfying if somewhat derivative thriller. Skillfully drawn surgical backdrops sizzling with ER
intensity balance out the obligatory romantic intrigue and familiar plucky police professionals, attesting to Gerritsen's authentic medical expertise as a former physician. Dr. Catherine Cordell, the main character in this chilling tale, thought she had shot and killed her rapist and would-be murderer two years earlier in steamy Savannah, where he was a surgery intern at her hospital. Now, in Boston, as another hot summer begins, he appears to have miraculously returned and embarked once again on his grisly mission: he rapes women, then surgically removes their wombs. As two intrepid detectives—Thomas Moore and Jane Rizzoli—investigate, Cordell begins to doubt her own memories (or lack of) and discovers that not even her OR is safe. Gliding as smoothly as a scalpel in a confident surgeon's hand, this tale proves that Gerritsen (Harvest; Life Support; Bloodstream; Gravity), originally a romance writer, has morphed into a dependable suspense novelist whose growing popularity is keeping pace with her ever-finer writing skills. (Sept.)Forecast:National print advertising in
People, the
New York Times and
USA Today, plus a major promotion campaign, will ratchet Gerritsen's sales up yet another notch.

July 1, 2001
After an almost brutal confrontation with trauma surgeon Catherine Cordell, detective Jane Rizzoli, the only woman in the Boston Police's homicide unit, observes that "there's cool, and then there's ice." Before moving to Boston, Cordell was raped in her Savannah, Georgia, home and would have had her uterus cut out if she hadn't freed herself and shot her assailant before he completed his surgical procedures. Later in Boston, three other women weren't as plucky. Since Andrew Capra, the surgeon who almost killed Cordell, was himself killed, who is playing "surgeon" in Boston, and why? The answers to those questions come out bit by bit. In the process, detective Tom Moore and Cordell fall in love, and the head of the homicide unit sends him off to Savannah, ostensibly to investigate the Capra murder scene but in reality to get him away from Cordell. While perusing Capra's class picture in an Emory Medical School yearbook, Moore finds the key to both the "surgeon" and his motivation. Back in Boston, Rizzoli mistakenly kills an unarmed assailant, gets dismissed to the Boston equivalent of Coventry, but ultimately saves Cordell from the "surgeon," though she almost loses her own life. Gerritsen fans know by now what to expect from her: a fascinating story with a gripping plot and believably human characters. Such is " The Surgeon," and, in places, then some. Let new readers learn what the fans delight in.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)