The Mephisto Club

July 24, 2006
In this brisk, deftly plotted thriller from bestseller Gerritsen (Vanish
), Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and police detective Jane Rizzoli look into the murder of 28-year-old Lori-Ann Tucker, whose body is found Christmas morning in her apartment amid an unholy mess of severed limbs, black candles and satanic symbols rendered in blood. "Peccavi," reads one word scrawled across Tucker's wall—Latin for "I have sinned." Isles and Rizzoli must sort sinner from innocent among suspects who can be found on several continents and include a group of sophisticates—scholars, an anthropologist, a psychiatrist—who are either cult members or crusaders against evil straight from the pages of Revelation. Other murders follow, all gruesome, all involving apocalyptic messages. On occasion, the action shifts to Europe, to a young woman running from a man she's convinced is descended from a race of fallen angels. Gerritsen has a knack for stretching believability just short of the breaking point—and for amassing details that produce an atmosphere in which the most terrible possibilities can and, indeed, should occur.

August 15, 2006
Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles return in this taut mystery, the sixth in Gerritsen's ("Vanish") Rizzoli series. Both women are appealing, flawed heroines dealing with various personal issues, along with a new case. A gruesome murder scene with elements of a Satanic ritual leads Rizzoli to Joyce O'Donnell, the psychologist who visits and studies the man who nearly killed Rizzoli earlier in the series ("The Surgeon"), and to the Mephisto Club, a Vidocq Society -type elite group interested in the more metaphysical aspects of crime, namely tracking down evil. The club members believe in Nephilim, or Watchers -evil creatures (with fallen angels and human women as parents) discussed in apocryphal biblical texts, including the book of Enoch and the book of Jubilees. Rizzoli and Isles, both with demons haunting their pasts, are drawn into the group, whose members are tracking the same killer the pair seeks. Edgy suspense, well-drawn characters, and plot twists will keep readers turning pages. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/1/06.]" - Beth Lindsay, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman"

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