THE SINNER Tess Gerritsen Ballantine Books £12.99 hbk Rel:September 2003 Reviewed by Ali Karim

We are back in New England to face some very dark crimes in the latest Tess Gerritsen thriller. Her team of characters are more than a little bruised from their battles with The Surgeon and The Apprentice and a little wary of what Gerritsen will throw at them. The novel starts with a gothic flourish in India with a faceless woman and a mystery that does not reveal itself until well into the novels narrative.

Homicide Detective Jane Rizzolli is back, but suffering emotionally following her brief but passionate fling with FBI agent Gabriel Dean from The Apprentice. The consequences of that entanglement reverberate into a case of murder and mutilation at a Catholic Abbey full of nuns and whispered secrets. Joining her on the case is forensic examiner Dr Maura Isles who colleagues refer to as ‘The Queen of the Dead’. Isles is also is coping with the end of a relationship, but her ex-partner Dr Victor Banks appears to be stalking her. The two warrior women join forces to try and discover why a nun was brutally murdered, and why another lies in a catatonic state at the local hospital. As the investigation gathers momentum, a dead child is found within the grounds of the Abbey, and another mutilated woman is discovered in a tenement replete with rats and vermin. This woman had her face, hands, and feet removed. This novel despite the Abbey setting, is far from being a cozy as we find that the secrets within its grounds are more disturbing than just the erratic and random actions of a disturbed mind. This gives the novel a more sinister edge, as the actions of an organised mind are far more dangerous than that of an insane one.

Gabriel Dean from the FBI joins the case, as there appear to be linkages to a federal investigation. Isles soon discovers hidden secrets in her former husband Dr Victor Banks, a man locked into serving the medical charity ‘One Earth’, an organisation that has more facets than its name would imply. The strength of this dark tale is the tapestry that is woven from the fabric of Isles’s and Rizzolli’s lives. These strong women appear to be able to cope with the worst of human behaviour - rape, murder, death and mutilation, while in their private lives they struggle to hold themselves together. This is best exemplified by the return of Rizzolli’s former partner Vince Korsak who takes her to dinner, and in so doing shows that the men who wear the badge, struggle just as much as their female counterparts in trying to hold their private lives in check.

A dark and disturbing peep into the lives of women who face the worst in mankind, and how they try to carve out an existence under the oppressive shadow of evil.

This is a fast moving and thought-provoking thriller which contains many unexpected twists on the path to discovering why a faceless woman from India seeks closure in the dark heart of New England. Highly recommended for those who like a character-driven narrative that takes them to the darker side of human motivations.