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The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel (Rizzoli & Isles Novels) [Hardcover]

Tess Gerritsen
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (271 customer reviews)


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Book Description

July 5, 2011 Rizzoli & Isles Novels
Lorraine Bracco loves The Silent Girl, saying "She did it to me again!  I can't get anything done when Tess puts out a new book and this one caught me as I was starting work on Season 2 of "Rizzoli & Isles."  So instead of memorizing my lines, I was sucked up into Boston's Chinatown with Jane, Maura, and company and could not put this one down. Just like the other books. Every time.  And to top it off, now I have to wait for the NEXT one to come out--you're killing me, Tess!  So good..."

No one takes readers to the dark side and back with more razor-sharp jolts and sheer suspense than the storytelling master behind Ice Cold and The Keepsake. When New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen has a tale to tell, put yourself in her expert hands—and prepare for the shocks and thrills that are certain to follow.

Every crime scene tells a story. Some keep you awake at night. Others haunt your dreams. The grisly display homicide cop Jane Rizzoli finds in Boston’s Chinatown will do both.

In the murky shadows of an alley lies a female’s severed hand. On the tenement rooftop above is the corpse belonging to that hand, a red-haired woman dressed all in black, her head nearly severed. Two strands of silver hair—not human—cling to her body. They are Rizzoli’s only clues, but they’re enough for her and medical examiner Maura Isles to make the startling discovery: that this violent death had a chilling prequel.

Nineteen years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide in a Chinatown restaurant left five people dead. But one woman connected to that massacre is still alive: a mysterious martial arts master who knows a secret she dares not tell, a secret that lives and breathes in the shadows of Chinatown. A secret that may not even be human. Now she’s the target of someone, or something, deeply and relentlessly evil.

Cracking a crime resonating with bone-chilling echoes of an ancient Chinese legend, Rizzoli and Isles must outwit an unseen enemy with centuries of cunning—and a swift, avenging blade.


Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Silent Girl

"Suspense doesn't get smarter than this. Not just recommended but mandatory."—Lee Child
 
"She did it to me again!  I can't get anything done when Tess puts out a new book and this one caught me as I was starting work on Season 2 of "Rizzoli & Isles."  So instead of memorizing my lines, I was sucked up into Boston's Chinatown with Jane, Maura, and company and could not put this one down. Just like the other books. Every time.  
And to top it off, now I have to wait for the NEXT one to come out--you're killing me, Tess!  So good..."—Lorraine Bracco
 
“[A] deft thriller.”—Publisher’s Weekly

 
Praise for Ice Cold and Tess Gerritsen
 

“Gerritsen paces Ice Cold with surgical precision.”—Salon
 
“The kind of book you’d read in one sitting.”—Chicago Sun-Times
 
“Amazing . . . another winner.”—The Plain Dealer
 
“[Gerritsen] has an imagination that allows her to conjure up depths of human behavior do dark and frightening that she makes Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft seem like goody-two-shoes.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“One of the most versatile voices in thriller fiction today.”—The Providence Journal

About the Author

Tess Gerritsen is a physician and an internationally bestselling author. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest. She is also the author of the bestsellers Ice Cold, The Keepsake, The Bone Garden, The Mephisto Club, Vanish, Body Double, The Sinner, The Apprentice, The Surgeon, Life Support, Bloodstream, and Gravity. Tess Gerritsen lives in Maine.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (July 5, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345515501
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345515506
  • Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 9.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (271 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #208,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

Tess Gerritsen's "The Silent Girl" is the best Rizzoli and Isles novel I've read to date. Smokey  |  80 reviewers made a similar statement
This book will keep you guessing until the very end. Nancy G.  |  80 reviewers made a similar statement
The story and the characters are well written and consistently developed. E. Griffin  |  39 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
169 of 182 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars great new thriller April 28, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I have loved all of Tess Gerritson's thrillers and this one The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel is no exception. The story is set in Boston and has a strong sense of place when the plot develops. This story is about a chilling murder in Boston's china town where detective Jane Rizzoli finds a red haired woman murdered on a roof top with a severed hand which they find in the alley below. Between the detective and the medical examiner, Dr. Maura Isles, they look for clues. Some of the clues are given early in the book and it is very interesting how the team tries to connect all the clues and then discover secrets of an ancient Chinese legend and all its dangers...

The author has done it again by coming out with this tremendous thriller. Don't start this book late at night like I did, and then you simply have to stay up to find the next clue! I am sure it will be another best seller, it is the type of book that grabs you from the very beginning!
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74 of 77 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Author's gender is beside the point May 4, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I've read several of Tess Gerritsen's books including her first, HARVEST, and the several most recent ones. There's always a tendency to call her one of the best woman writers, and that of course is true enough, but moreover, she's one of the best mystery thriller writers, period.

And this is one of her creepiest and most mesmerizing. After a brief prologue detailing the meeting of two important characters, we're plunged into the grisly discovery in Boston's Chinatown of first a woman's severed hand and then her body. Jane Rizzoli, aided by medical examiner Maura Isles who is presently on bad terms with the police officers, leads the investigation. The investigation reveals that this and another murder has connections with a bizarre massacre that occurred 19 years earlier.

Two enigmatic Chinese women flavor the story, the older one narrating some chapters. There is a certain mysticism also flavoring the story. The solution is satisfyingly meaty and involved. I did spot one character early in the book who was playing a greater role than was obvious, but the rest of the solution was suitably surprising.

The pace here is fast and the characterization is superb, making several characters fascinating and likeable, ones you enjoy knowing. I give this my highest recommendation for whatever it may be worth.
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88 of 102 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Needs more Isles and less paranormal May 8, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
In "The Silent Girl", Tess Gerritsen delivers another tale of mystery, murder, and mayham, starring TV-famous Jane Rizzoli--detective with a heart--and Maura Isles, a medical examiner who searches only for truth (a contendor for Patricia Cornwall's early caricature of Kay Scarpetta, now abandoned for a darker, more depressing person I barely recognize). The story is told through the eyes of both the people solving the crime and the person suspected of committing it. This book, though, comes with a twist. More on that later.

Rizzoli and Isles are called to the scene of a heinous murder which Rizzoli quickly ties to one nineteen years ago. Rizzoli's the star of this story with only cameo help from Isles, delivered with none of the ME's usual magic uncovering clues from dead bodies no one else notices. Why? Isles is distracted by ending her relationship with a boyfriend and testifying in a trial against a policeman. The former breaks her heart, the latter breaks the Blue Code of Silence and alienates her from the men she must work with on a daily basis. But it's Isles core reasoning--that truth is justice--which sets up the story's theme: Is truth a barometer of right and wrong or a moving target? There are several appealing scenes between Isles and the boy who saved her life in an earlier book that contribute to Isles part in solving this puzzling mystery, but nothing like the usual partnership we have come to relish between Rizzoli and Isles, crime solvers extraordinaire.

While Gerritsen does a good job sharing the juxtaposition of man's law vs. nature's, leaving it to the reader to decide if they side with Maura's black and white view or Rizzoli's more tempered 'Do we really know', it's not enough. True the book is a satisfying read with lots of Gerritsen's trademark characterizations, plot twists and clever solutions, but it isn't a five-star. The reason is the new twist I mentioned in the first paragraph. Gerritsen uses the paranormal as a plot device. She couches it in authentic Chinese fables, but it's presented as creatures that do things no man can do, aka para-normal. That genre is popular right now, so she could be hoping to broaden her audience, but doing so risks alienating her traditional readers. Mystery thrillers don't normally respect mysticism like the ghosts and man-monkeys and wispy spirits I found in 'Silent Girl' even if they are defenders of justice. By halfway through the book, I was tired of phrases about 'icy fingers, 'chilled her', 'a cold breath', 'chill rippled through her'--enough! It's OK to have the metaphysical as a character trait, even a subplot, but not an integral part of the main plot. While I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion of Chinese history, I didn't like it in the Boston PD world of Jane and Maura, or as a structural part of the novel. My suggestion (I know she's reading this): If this is important to her evolving identity as an author, create a new character line of paranormal thrillers, but don't mix the two.

Overall, I offer a mixed recommendation. If you read detective stories and paranormal, you'll love this. If you are a dyed-in-the-wool thriller reader, skip it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars amazing!!!
Couldn't put this book down! Tess has an amazing capacity to weave a tale that engages you from the very start. Read more
Published 2 days ago by Jacqueline Parks
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
Another Tess Gerritsen Great Read, She keeps your attention through out the book , hard to put down. I am a big fan of all lher books. She is a great Mystery Author.
Published 7 days ago by William p Heuer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Page turner, us never really knew what was going on, really hard to follow the clues cause they really did keep us guessing.
Published 8 days ago by R. Setheni Kirschnick
5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite one so far.
I really enjoy the Rizzoli & Isles series of books. This one had me totally involved in the plot from the first page. Read more
Published 10 days ago by MARY S
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read
Another winner by Tess Gerritsen. She does it again with The Silent Girl. Gripping all through the book A must read for mystery lovers.
Published 12 days ago by O. Quadros
5.0 out of 5 stars I enjoy murder mystery stories and found this to be entertaining, easy...
I enjoy murder mystery stories and found this to be entertaining, easy to follow and hard to put down once started.
Published 12 days ago by sandy lorgelly
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!!
Tess G. just keeps getting better and better! Thank goodness she hasn't gone the route of so many best selling authors who have gotten lazy in their story lines who end up with... Read more
Published 15 days ago by V. Lichac
4.0 out of 5 stars The silent girl
Engrossing.. Unable to put it down ! It is a modern mystery with the mystic of the orient thrown in. Wonderfully written
Published 15 days ago by Shirley
4.0 out of 5 stars It was enjoyable to read and as good as any of Gerretson books
Kept your attention so many twists and turns. I am not much of a fan of far out schemes or people.
Published 16 days ago by clara Jindrich
4.0 out of 5 stars Review-silent girl
Very slow paced at times. It keeps your attention and also keeps your interest until the end.quite a twist but. Very good
Published 18 days ago by James F. Williams
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What next for Maura Isles?
I'm thinking Gerritsen will probably focus more on Isles being a mother figure to Rat than trying to put her in another romantic relationship so quickly.
Jul 27, 2011 by Lauren |  See all 3 posts
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