Customer Reviews

The Bone Garden: A Novel

5 star:		(76)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've read most of Gerritsen's medical thrillers, but avoided her more recent installment of books dealing with serial killers.

This book was a pleasant surprise, and in my opinion, one of Gerritsen's best. Don't let the title throw you. This isn't something from the supernatural horror genre, or a book dealing with someone who kills just for kicks.

When Julia Hamill purchases a 130-year old home, she realizes the fixer-upper is going to be an overwhelming project. Toiling in the overgrown garden, she unearths a skeleton that predates the house and which appears to be a murder victim. When a neighbor connects her to an old man with boxes of letters and newspaper clippings pertaining to the house, she finds herself mesmerized by the lives of Boston's richest - and poorest - historical inhabitants whose lives hold the key to the bones in her garden.

It was a truly enjoyable read, juxtaposing the 1830s with the present. Gerristen also draws heavily on her experience writing romance novels and gives us here equal parts thriller and love story.

The adrenaline junkies among us may feel mildly let down because the story resolves itself to a large degree before the final page and then sort of winds down gently rather than building to a furious crescendo. But unlike some reviewers, I found that to be a positive in this book, not a negative.

Frankly, of all Gerritsen's books I have read so far (and that has been about 5 or 6), this has been the most enjoyable.

The Bone Garden starts off with that common mystery beginning... an old skeleton is found buried behind the newly purchased 130 year old house. The verdict? Murder so foul.

How did it get there? What was its story?

Author Tess Gerritsen goes back to the year 1830 in Boston, when medical students often were responsible for gathering up their own cadavers for study, and hand-washing was not linked in any manner with the spreading of disease, including, tragically, by physicians.

This story involves one such medical student (Norris Marshall) moonlighting as a grave-robber, his fellow student and friend Oliver Wendell Holmes, senior, and a young woman (Rose Connolly), who is desperately trying to protect her late sister's baby girl from the fate of the paupers' orphanage. In the meantime, a killer called the West End Reaper seems to collecting victims known by the three. Is one the Reaper? What connects these three, and the bones of the young woman found a century and a half later?

As it turns out, not much.

This is a really engaging story until, well, it ends. The crescendo is there, grabbing your attention, developing characters you love or hate, and raising the mystery to a level worthy of your interest. Then... poof. I can't tell you about the "poof" without giving away the mystery. Needless to say, it was deflating. Hence, the three stars.

Gerritsen weaves the mysteries of today and yesterday with skill, developing characters I empathized with. The broad links tightened as the novel came to a close, but the final knot was too contrived and abrupt.

A novel should never be harmed by its ending, and this one was.

Newly divorced Julia Hamill has struck out on her own and moved into a quaint old house. Julia is comfortable in her new home, working in her garden; that is, until she uncovers a skeleton while digging amongst the weeds in her backyard. A mysterious phone call from an old gentleman who claims to know the history of her old home soon follows; and the quest begins between Julia and her elderly friend to uncover the long history and story behind the old house.
Moving back and forth between centuries (following the people behind the home's history), it is the 1800s, and young Rose has just lost her older sister to childbed fever. Now faced with caring for baby Meggy while avoiding her sister's abusive husband, Rose finds herself homeless and despondent. But she makes her way; Rose is a survivor, and finds her niece a wetnurse to stay with, while also finding herself a place to lay her head at night. Meanwhile, Boston is besieged by a series of horrific murders, and the killer is dubbed the West End Reaper. The only two people to witness the killer are Rose and Norris--a dashing young medical student who cared for her sister during her illness. The two join together in their collective desire to see the killer caught--and in their need to protect Rose's young niece Meggy, who seems to somehow be at the center of everything.
A novel chock full of suspense and romance, in addition to being rich in detailing the history of the medical profession overall. I loved this book and found it impossible to put down.


DYB

Tess Gerritsen is one of my favorite writers. All of her books that I had read up until the Mephisto Club were topnotch. After reading The Mephisto Club I wasn't expecting much from her newest book, but after reading The Bone Garden I'll have to say this is her best book to date. I was happy to see she used new characters in this novel. Maura Isles appears briefly in the beginning, as she introduces new characters. Tess is an excellent story teller weaving between present day and the early 1830's. This a must read!!!!!

I wanted to add my review to the above reviews to balance some of the narrowminded ones I read. Yes, we all love her usual characters, but Gerritsen should be applauded for successfully accomplishing a period piece with a many subplots and twists that, as with all of her other books, showcases her superior researching and writing skills -- and her ability to draw the reader into the characters and the believable story. She masterfully cuts from present to early 1800's past from chapter to chapter. Loved the OB/GYN medicine angle and the Oliver Wendell Holmes historical significance. Very satisfying. You will love both the female and male protagonist. For those addicted to Gerritsen's writing style, methodology and skill and who are not so close minded that they can't read something a little different once in a while, you will absolutely love this book.

I am a big fan of Gerritsen's and looked forward to her latest. I must say I am glad I borrowed from the library instead of buying. The title and cover were deceptive, promising the kind of fast-paced, spare-no-gory-details medical thriller I've come to expect from this author.
First I will say the book was entertaining -- I happen to like historical novels and medical history - but I was expecting a medical thriller, which this wasn't. If I had not known the author, I would have guessed it was someone more like Mary Higgins Clark, especially in the present day - young divorcee-in-distress sections of the book. Which is not to say I don't enjoy the guilty please of MHC as well.
So reader bewarned, but proceed if you're in the mood for a historical romance novel with a medical twist, set in a time before the germ theory of disease was well known or accepted.

THE BONE GARDEN (Mys/Hist/Cont- Mass- 1830/Cont) - G+
Gerritsen, Tess - Standalone
Ballantine Books, 2007, US Hardcover - ISBN: 9780345497604

First Sentence: Dearest Margaret, I thank you for your kind condolences, so sincerely offered, for the loss of my darling Amelia.

Newly divorced, Julia Hamill is working on the garden of her new home in rural Massachusetts when she uncovers a skull a woman who Dr. Maura Isles determines was murdered.

That revelation, and contact from the former owners' elderly cousin in Islesboro, Maine, leads Julia to an investigation going back to Boston Medical College students, including Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr, in the 1830s.
Something different from Ms. Gerritsen. This is not her normal medical thriller, but a fascinating, and rather horrible, look at medicine and law in pre-Civil War America.

It is a mystery, violent at times, which includes some gruesome descriptions and resurrectionists, which seems to be a common theme at the moment. It is also a very touching love story and looks at the lives of poor women during the time.

The ending was weak and the present-day story definitely takes the back seat to the past, but the two time periods did work for me and I was captivated by the story. This was a one-sitting read for me. I love Gerritsen's writing and give her kudos for branching out to do something different.

I found Tess Gerritsen about a year ago and proceeded to read every book she's written. I've always enjoyed her well developed characters and all their real human failings. She keeps the action moving so that it's hard to put her books down.

When I started The Bone Garden, I was expecting the usual medical thriller, maybe with a variation on the theme with the historical twist. I didn't expect an entertaining and enlightening trip into the horrors of our not so distant medical history. The use of OWH and his live-saving contribution to modern medicine made this a wonderful read. So, the characters were a little less realistic than what I expect from Gerritsen...and the ending was not as well written as some of her other books. The overall experience made me close the book with a sigh of contentment of time well spent.

And, in true Gerritsen style, she DID end the novel with a punch...it just came in the last three words of the Author's Note.

At it's best, historical fiction can be the most intriguing, entertaining creative work that one can read. A story that is enthralling in it's own right, and also includes all the atmosphere of another place in time holds the reader's fascination like few other genres can. But the challenge of keeping the background details authentic while maintaining a flowing narrative is beyond the ability of many writers. Too often parts of the book can read like a dull textbook while the author draws the details of the setting.

Ms. Gerritsen's The Bone Garden is historical fiction at it's very best. The story itself is captivating, while the author seamlessly paints a richly detailed portrait of 1830's Boston. The inclusion of one of history's most fascinating figures, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., not only adds to the appeal of the book, but also ties some of the novel's details into what could well be the most significant but overlooked advance in modern medical practice.

This book could well be the finest addition to Ms. Gerritsen's already impressive catalogue of work.

This work creates a picture of life in the 1830s for the poor. Horrible doesn't describe some of the incidents in the book, but the author's accuracy and compassion are obvious. Tess Gerritsen cared about those women who lived and died so long ago. She told it as it was, painful, desperate and sometimes utterly foul. I am a Civil War researcher and I can validate all of her historical references as well as her heartbreaking accounts of the "lying-in" hospitals. They should have been called a place to die. Enjoyable to the last page, engrossing story and truthful to a fault. Keep 'em coming, Tess.