Friday 8 May 2009
Maura Isles makes a brief appearance as the one called when Julia Hamill finds a skeleton in her back garden. Dr Isles' experience tells her that the skeleton has the characteristics of a murder but the remains are extremely old. An expert dates the bones as coming from the 1800s. Julia is then contacted by someone who holds a clue as to who the skeleton belongs to. As she researches through boxes of old letters trying to find out clues regarding the bones, the book flashes back to 1830 and the story of the Boston West End Reaper.
In the present, Julia buys a new house on an impulse act. Her husband has divorced her and is marrying a younger woman. She finds the bones while attempting to tame her garden. She gets a call from Henry Page, an old man who has in his possession letters that could provide an answer regarding the identity of the bones. Julia imerses herself in the research as an escape from her chaotic life.
In the past, Norris Marshal is a farmer's son who took a job as a "resurrectionist" (a grave robber) to pay for his tuition fee as he studies medicine. Meanwhile, Rose sees herself responsible for her niece's safety after her sister dies shortly after labour. Rose starts being hunted by people looking for the baby and her story becomes entangled with Norris as he becomes the suspect for the West End Murders. In their connection, they fall in love with each other.
The resolution of the story is reserved until the very last moment. I honestly could not guess the ending this time until the culprit was revealed.
I would not have minded a little more development on the characters in the present, but the story of the Boston West End Reaper and the love of Norris and Rose more than made up for that. Once again, Tess submerges herself into a different style and surfaces elegantly.
Labels: Tess Gerritsen
I have been reading several medical thrillers by Patricia Cornwell and while they have been extremely entertaining, they did not thrill me anywhere near as much as Gravity by Tess Gerritsen. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that it is not thrillers in general that I love. It is Tess Gerritsen!
She is an extremely versatile writer. Gravity brushes on the sci-fi category. The story is about an apparently harmless organism that starts multiplying in a space station and infects and begins killing its occupants. At the centre of the story we have a heroine again. Emma Watson becomes the space station's physician when the current physician is forced to come home due to his wife suffering an accident.
When the organism starts killing the habitants inside the space station, they see themselves stranded and unable to come back to Earth. It is Jack (Emma's nearly-ex-husband) that will do everything in his power to bring her back home.
The book started quite technical to get us used to the NASA setting which made it a bit difficult to start for a NASA newb like me. However, once I got used to the acronyms, the story flowed wonderfully. The story had everything I could possibly like in it. There was the romantic tension between Emma and Jack and the realization of true love when facing disaster. The biology of the organism infecting the crew was interesting and kept me on edge. I really thought they were all going to die and that there was no cure possible.
I was expecting an average story due to the change in genre but it was great. I loved it.
Labels: Tess Gerritsen
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