Vanish
Tess Gerritsen
Ballantine Books, 2006http://www.tessgerritsen.com/
How the Genre Should be Done
Tess Gerritsen contributed an excellent essay on "The Medical Thriller" to the Mystery Writers of America's handbook, Writing Mysteries. Recovering from the recent disappointment of an Irish-based doc-cop from Paul Carson, I decided to pick up Vanish, one of Dr. Gerritsen's recent Boston-set titles, to see how the genre should be done.
Vanish features the city's Medical Examiner, Dr. Maura Isles, but stars the married couple of Boston Homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and FBI agent Gabriel Dean. The novel's opening takes inspiration from a news item that, shockingly, is not rare. As the autopsy on the drowned body of a beautiful young woman begins, the corpse lets out a scream and leaps up. Dr. Maura Isles gazes in horror as the naked woman starts running around the Boston morgue.
The resurrection woman soon grabs the gun off a hospital security guard, shoots him in the head, and takes Maura toward the exit as a human shield. Meanwhile Detective Jane Rizzoli is flat out on an ultrasound table, gazing up in anticipation as the doctors fret over when her labor will begin. The answer: as soon as Jane and the rest of the patients in the wing are taken hostage by the mysterious unidentified woman. It's fast-moving, tense stuff.
Hubby Gabriel Dean gazes in hopeless frustration at the ensuing carnival which soon gathers, with Boston PD, FBI, a renegade reporter and sleazy top counter-terrorist agent all posturing and debating options. It's right about then that someone notices that the dead "security guard" is completely unknown to the hospital, and Maura's autopsy reveals that he is likely a member of a top-secret US military assassination unit....
Chapters set during the hospital siege crisis and its aftermath are interspersed with journal entries from a star-gazing young Eastern European girl who has snuck her way into America, only to be forced into sexual slavery by a heartless sadist. Sadly Gerritsen based this on reality as well- and like morge bodies discovered breathing, this terrible exploitation is not rare. These first-person chapters not only serve as a relieving change of pace and tone, but eventually provide a terrible secret that powerful men are willing to commit mass murder to keep hidden.
Like Paul Carson's writing, Vanish contains medical detail but is focused on the crime-fic plot. Her pages turn quickly, delivering not only excitement and information but also illustrations of new parenthood that raise a knowing a smile. This is a solid, enjoyable, accessible read.
Also like Carson, Gerritsen is guilty of overusing certain words. "Gaze," and the related "gazed" and "gazing" are employed several hundred times in Vanish. Characters gaze silently at one another until their gazes slide away, then their gazes focus at a dirty bum in the park who tries to avoid their gaze and gazes up at the black helicopter circling overhead, the one with long telescope lenses gazing at the chase below. It's a bit like when a lecturer has a lisp, and after a while it's all that can be heard.
Critical Mick says: Vanish is a fun medical thriller that includes a taste of the authentic. Though certain elements are not particularly new (the scenes when crossing illegally into the US, for instance, strongly echo Francine Biere's Death in the Desert) and the language choices sometimes disappointed, Tess Gerritsen has live up to her excellent reputation.
Mant thanks, Tess Gerritsen!
Read Declan Burke's interview with Tess Gerritsen!
|
