The Shape of Night

Starred review from August 5, 2019
This supernatural thriller from bestseller Gerritsen (the Rizzoli and Isles series) ranks with the best of her crime fiction. Boston food writer Ava Colette travels to Tucker Cove, Maine, where she rents Brodie’s Watch, an old house on the coast once owned by a 19th-century sea captain, Jeremiah Brodie. Ava’s goal is to finish writing her latest cookbook there, but she’s also trying to escape a tragic past. Soon her nights are interrupted by visions of Jeremiah’s ghost, who appears to be as real as if he were a flesh and blood man. Meanwhile, she begins to wonder about a series of mysterious if apparently natural deaths in the town—and why the last renter left the house so abruptly. After learning more about the house’s history and its previous inhabitants, she consults a ghost hunter, whose team discovers some disturbing things about paranormal presences at Brodie’s Watch. The stakes rise when Ava figures out that a killer is on the loose who must be stopped. This magnetic haunted house story will keep readers riveted from the very first page. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency.