The Surgeon (with Bonus Content): A Rizzoli & Isles Novel (Rizzoli & Isles)

by Tess Gerritsen

• ISBN10: 0345449436
• ISBN13: 9780345449436
• Publish Date: 2 October 2001
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Ballantine Books
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 270
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

This book is one of the greatest crime books I have ever read. In fact, I've read it three times and every time, without fail, I still get excited, my heart still thumps, and even though I know what's going to happen, it's still such an intense, amazing read. This is the start of one of the most amazing book series ever, although actually, we don't get to meet Maura Isles just yet, but we meet Jane Rizzoli and I love every inch of her. She's so tough, hard to break, doesn't take no for an answer, and her determination to catch The Surgeon is infectious.

What surprises me every time I read The Surgeon is that Thomas Moore didn't become part of the main series. It's not Rizzoli/Isles/Moore and that kind of makes me sad because Thomas Moore is SUCH a good cop, such a nice guy, and again, I really, really liked him, buy hey ho, because Rizzoli & Isles make for the BEST partnership.

If you love a good crime book, give this book a go. It's 14 years old, not that you'd know it, and it's absolutely amazing, and the whole series is! You've got ELEVEN books to look forward to if you start this series. ELEVEN. And they're all amazing, although this one will always, ALWAYS, have a special place in my heart.

This is the first book in the series and the start of amazing books. This one was just fantastic and a real page turner. I really enjoyed these books and I would recommend that everybody read this series.

[empressbrooke]

I'm guessing, based on the number of reserves this book had at my library when I went looking for it, that many people are discovering Tess Gerritsen these days because of the new TNT show, Rizzoli & Isles. It's based on Gerritsen's books, and it's a fun, though not original, police detective procedural. Angie Harmon's Jane Rizzoli doesn't seem that different from Angie Harmon's Lindsay Boxer (from another police procedural book-to-TV adaptation, based on James Patterson's Women's Murder Club), and Sasha Alexander's Maura Isles seems like a copycat of Temperance Brennan on Bones (also a book-to-TV adaptation, of course).

So of course, being the reader that I am, I was curious to see if the show's characters were faithfully drawn from the pages of the books, or if they were merely loose interpretations. This first book in the series doesn't even introduce Isles yet, so I wasn't able to pass judgment on her, but Rizzoli is present from the beginning. She's almost relegated to being a supporting character; Detective Thomas Moore is the protagonist here. Angie Harmon isn't a bad visual representation of book-Rizzoli; aside from the book's boxy pantsuits and perhaps a few inches in height, they seem pretty similar. The show loses nearly all of Rizzoli's defensiveness and acerbic attitude, but I'm wondering if the character changes enough over the course of the books to warrant that difference.

As for the book itself, it's got everything a fan of detective/serial killer/procedural thrillers would want. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but it's definitely a great example of the genre. The plot shows up very vaguely in the show's first episode, but the stories are so different that neither is going to spoil the other. I've got the second book in the series on reserve at the library and look forward to meeting book-Isles.

[ibeforem]

I felt pretty “ho-hum” about this book. It was alright, but not so great that I’ll seek out more books by Tess Gerritsen. On to bigger and better things!