The Sinner [Mass Market Paperback]

Tess Gerritsen (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (2009)
• ASIN: B002HST8AG
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (122 customer reviews)

More About the Author

I'm a physician as well as the New York Times-bestselling author of medical thrillers and the Jane Rizzoli crime thrillers.

Readers who are familiar with my graphic autopsy scenes and forensic details may be astonished to learn that my very first published novels were actually ... romantic suspense. So why did I leave writing romances and turn to thrillers?

It was all because of a chance dinner conversation some years ago. The man sitting beside me at a restaurant one night was an ex-cop who 'd recently been traveling in Russia. Moscow cops had told him that orphans were vanishing from the streets, and they believed the children were being kidnaped and shipped abroad as organ donors.

I was horrified by the tale. Weeks later, unable to forget those missing Russian orphans, I knew I just had to write a book about them. I wanted to bring into it all the medical and autopsy details that I'd learned from my years as a physician. The sights, the smells of the autopsy and operating rooms -- everything.

My first medical thriller, HARVEST, was released in hardcover in 1996, and it marked my debut on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list. It was followed by my medical thrillers LIFE SUPPORT (1997), BLOODSTREAM (1998), GRAVITY (1999).

In 2001, my books took another abrupt turn, to forensic thrillers. THE SURGEON was my first Jane Rizzoli thriller. Since then, I've written THE APPRENTICE (2002), THE SINNER (2003), BODY DOUBLE (2004), VANISH (2005 -- and an Edgar Award nominee), and THE MEPHISTO CLUB (2006).

I believe my readers want me to tell them secrets. And that's exactly what I try to do. I take them into the autopsy room, and show them what I've seen. But most of all, I hope I'm revealing what lies in the hearts of my characters. Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles are real people to me now. I hope they're just as real to everyone who becomes acquainted with them!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sinner, September 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sinner (Hardcover)

After reading the Surgeon and the Apprentice any author would be hard pressed to come up with something as good, but, Tess Gerritsen has almost done it with this book. It's a real page turner. I hope she keeps these characters for awhile.
I have to admit I read the book in a day and a half. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 is because I just finished reading the Surgeon and the Apprentice and just couldn't put it up to those two.
Great book am awaiting her next work.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read!!!, October 25, 2003

By 

Kristi Ahlers (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sinner (Hardcover)

Although I was loath to put this book down until the final page, it still was not as gripping as her last two books. Still if you like medical thrillers you can't go wrong with Ms. Gerritsen.

Without giving too much of the plot away the opening takes us to India and a massacred village. Then we are back in Boston at a brutal murder of a young novice and the injury of an older nun. The violence is unbelievable and there seems to be no indication of motive. But when the investigation moves forward ties between the murder of the young novice and the murder of an unidentified women in an abandon building are linked by bizzare circumstances. Detective Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isle work together to bring a killer to justice.

I enjoyed reading about Jane and I actually liked that Ms. Gerritsen was willing to portray this strong woman with normal human feelings of not thinking that she can do it all. I don't feel that romance was a huge part of the book. I'm a huge romance genre fan and the romance between Jane and Agent Gaberial Dean was way far back on the back burner and since I have been reading all the books involving Jane I was happy to see this relationship was continued and developed. As for the romance issue with Dr. Isle I feel that it played a part in the storyline and again this was not a priority in the plot. Yes, this book is not as griping as her last two...but then it is dealing with a different type of killer.

This book is worth picking up just keep and open mind and don't expect it to be like her others. Suspense is at a premium and favorite characters from previous book are included. If you have not read the last few books by Ms. Gerritsen don't worry, this book is still a stand alone story and by no means relys on previous titles. This is a fast paced read and a good way to spend a weekend.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Heroines Make the Sinner Twice as Good, July 29, 2010

By 

Island Dreamer (Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Sinner (Jane Rizzoli, Book 3) (Mass Market Paperback)

Usually I can tell who the protagonist in a novel is right off the bat, lots of times just by reading the inside flap of a hard cover or the back of a paperback. But in this more than excellent thriller/mystery from Tess Gerritsen I had a hard time deciding if the novel belonged to Boston Medical Examiner Maura Isles or Police Detective Jane Rizzoli. In a well written suspense story told from the third person point of view, we get to wander around in the head of enough people to make the book interesting, usually four or five, but not so many that it becomes confusing, however we spend most of the time with our protag. In this book, however, Ms. Gerritsen seems to have divided our head time more or less equally between these two very well crafted characters and she's done it so well that it's frightening.

Dr. Maura Isles is called to a crime scene on a snowy day before Christmas, two nuns in a cloistered order have been attacked, one killed. Detective Jane Rizzoli is already at the scene. Maura discovers the dead nun was pregnant during the autopsy, Rizzoli faints, something this hard as nails cop has never done, but she can't help it, she's pregnant too and she doesn't know if she's going to keep the child as the father is FBI agent Gabriel Dean, who she had a brief affair with and is now back in Washington, a long way from Boston.

During the course of the investigation, Maura and Rizzoli discover that the surviving nun had spent two years in a leper colony in India, then later a body turns up with leprosy, however the face, hands and feet had been removed to hide the disease. Rizzoli and Maura wonder if there could be a connection and the FBI does too. Enter agent Dean to represent the Feds and further complicate Rizzoli's life. Should she tell him about the baby or not? Are the bodies related or not? And is the death of an executive from a major chemical company that just happened to have a plant upwind from that leper colony in India related? How many more are going to die? Maura gets close. The killer has his eyes on her. Can Rizzoli stop him?

There is a lot to take in in this fast moving story that will have you anticipating as much as it will have you guessing. After reading The Apprentice I couldn't imagine how Ms. Gerritsen could get any better, but she has, each one of her books is better than the last and that is really saying something.