A NIGHT OWL REVIEWS BOOK REVIEW | Reviewed by: Bob Walch
"The bullet slammed into her back, right between her shoulder blades. The impact sent her flying and she sprawled on her belly, her palms scraping across pavement. Her weapon flew out of her hands. The Kevlar vest had saved her, but the force of the bullet stole the breath from her lungs and she lay stunned, her gun somewhere out of reach." Detective Jane Rizzoli has had better days. This little scrape isn't quite over yet since the person who fired the shot is walking towards her with his gun drawn. Will she find a way to deal with this dilemma? Of course, but there's much more awaiting the Boston cop and medical examiner Maura Isles as they try to solve a grisly Chinatown murder. Seven years earlier a murder-suicide left five people dead in a Chinatown restaurant. There was one survivor, a mysterious martial arts instructor who has been harboring a dark secret she dare not share. Now another death forces her to rethink her long silence. The recent murder victim was badly hacked up and some of her body parts were spread about the neighborhood. Most puzzling, though, was the discovery of non-human primate hairs and the metallic shard from an ancient weapon. Both these odd clues suggest a connection, odd as it seems, to the fable of the Monkey King, a powerful Chinese deity famous for its mischievousness and vengeance. How an old legend connects with a horrific modern day crime is anybody's guess. But if Rizzoli and Isles don't come up with an answer rather quickly, there will be even more violent monkey business. A physician and internationally acclaimed writer, Tess Gerritsen's work has attracted a lot of attention. The Maine resident has been lauded as "one of the most versatile voices in thriller fiction today". Each novel is a little better than the last and this woman is bent on staking out her claim as one of the best new writers in the very competitive thriller genre.
Jul 18, 2011 | 9780345515506
5 - Rare Top Pick | 4.5 - Top Pick | 4 - I Liked It | 3.5 - Enjoyable | 3 - OK | 2.5 - It just didn't click
Book Blurb for The Silent Girl
When New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen has a tale to tell, put yourself in her expert hands—and prepare for the shocks and thrills that are certain to follow.
Every crime scene tells a story. Some keep you awake at night. Others haunt your dreams. The grisly display homicide cop Jane Rizzoli finds in Boston’s Chinatown will do both.
In the murky shadows of an alley lies a female’s severed hand. On the tenement rooftop above is the corpse belonging to that hand, a red-haired woman dressed all in black, her head nearly severed. Two strands of silver hair—not human—cling to her body. They are Rizzoli’s only clues, but they’re enough for her and medical examiner Maura Isles to make the startling discovery: that this violent death had a chilling prequel.
Nineteen years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide in a Chinatown restaurant left five people dead. But one woman connected to that massacre is still alive: a mysterious martial arts master who knows a secret she dares not tell, a secret that lives and breathes in the shadows of Chinatown. A secret that may not even be human. Now she’s the target of someone, or something, deeply and relentlessly evil.
Cracking a crime resonating with bone-chilling echoes of an ancient Chinese legend, Rizzoli and Isles must outwit an unseen enemy with centuries of cunning—and a swift, avenging blade.
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