Post by Bartwald on May 24, 2004 13:19:41 GMT -5
Tess Gerritsen [glow=red,2,300]The Surgeon[/glow] (2001) ***
The cover told me that Stephen King announced Gerritsen a writer 'better than Robin Cook, Michael Palmer and even Michael Crichton' - so I got hold of it. After all, when King was saying Clive Barker was 'new hope for horror', or some such, he wasn't all that wrong.
But I had mixed feelings when getting this one, as the scars on my brain after struggling with another woman writer, Alex Kava, and her 'A Perfect Evil', are yet to be healed. Anyway, I opened the book finally, read it and thought it's not bad, after all! The romance parts may be clumsy at moments but never as dire as the ones Alex Kava forced me to face (here you at least don't know which girl the main police character is going to choose finally - both are kind of interesting and convincing as characters), and the bloody stuff is really well done as is the mystery surrounding the killer: he's supposed to be long time dead (being shot after he almost killed the main female character), he talks to us from time to time in a very educated manner and - best of all! - he's got some cool skin disease. All the 'a mad surgeon's killing ladies' plot is rather corny but it does lead to a satisfying and suspenseful finale where you can't predict who of the good guys are gonna make it.
I mean, it's not one of those books reading which you relish every page, no; but it's interesting and violent enough to force us to read on, has likeable characters, a wicked killer and gives us a good pay-off at the end (the last page twist is nothing shocking but the true showdown - thirty last pages, I believe - that's some gripping stuff). I've read better Cooks and Crichtons in my life than this book here, but the Gerritsen girl still seems to be one to watch.
The cover told me that Stephen King announced Gerritsen a writer 'better than Robin Cook, Michael Palmer and even Michael Crichton' - so I got hold of it. After all, when King was saying Clive Barker was 'new hope for horror', or some such, he wasn't all that wrong.
But I had mixed feelings when getting this one, as the scars on my brain after struggling with another woman writer, Alex Kava, and her 'A Perfect Evil', are yet to be healed. Anyway, I opened the book finally, read it and thought it's not bad, after all! The romance parts may be clumsy at moments but never as dire as the ones Alex Kava forced me to face (here you at least don't know which girl the main police character is going to choose finally - both are kind of interesting and convincing as characters), and the bloody stuff is really well done as is the mystery surrounding the killer: he's supposed to be long time dead (being shot after he almost killed the main female character), he talks to us from time to time in a very educated manner and - best of all! - he's got some cool skin disease. All the 'a mad surgeon's killing ladies' plot is rather corny but it does lead to a satisfying and suspenseful finale where you can't predict who of the good guys are gonna make it.
I mean, it's not one of those books reading which you relish every page, no; but it's interesting and violent enough to force us to read on, has likeable characters, a wicked killer and gives us a good pay-off at the end (the last page twist is nothing shocking but the true showdown - thirty last pages, I believe - that's some gripping stuff). I've read better Cooks and Crichtons in my life than this book here, but the Gerritsen girl still seems to be one to watch.