The Keepsake

Gerritsen's continuing characters are challenged anew when strange artifacts turn up in Boston's Crispin Museum. It seems someone's reviving the art of mummification--with contemporary victims. A beautiful young museum employee with a mysterious past gets kidnapped--will she be next? It's up to Detective Jane Rizzoli and M.E. Maura Isles to sort this out. Deirdre Lovejoy's reading is proof that a narrator doesn't have to individualize each voice to create a top-notch audio. Yes, a few minor players get accents, but Lovejoy's real talent is for injecting personality into dialogue. With inflection she shows fear, arrogance, determination, intelligence, or confusion. She's also expert at handling suspense, and there's plenty to be had. Add clarity and a good pace, and you have a winner. J.B.G. Winner of AudioFIle Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

July 28, 2008
Bestseller Gerritsen's at times lackluster series heroines prove they can shine in her solid seventh thriller to feature Det. Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles (after The Mephisto Club
). When medical examiner Isles studies an X-ray scan of Madame X, which everyone assumes is a newly discovered Egyptian mummy, at Boston's Crispin Museum, she realizes the mummy isn't a priceless artifact but a recent murder victim, gruesomely preserved. Rizzoli focuses the police investigation on Dr. Josephine Pulcillo, a young archeologist recently hired by the museum who may have something to hide. More victims soon turn up, including a tsantsa
(shrunken head) in a hidden museum chamber and a corpse resembling a well-preserved bog body in Pulcillo's car. After Pulcillo disappears, Rizzoli and Isles must scramble to find her before she becomes another trophy in the killer's growing collection. As usual, Gerritsen delivers an intricate plot that will keep readers guessing.