Book Review: The Silent Girl by Tess Gerritsen

Title: The Silent Girl: a Rizzo and Isles Novel
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books; First Edition (July 5, 2011)
Source: Library book
Rating: 4.75/5

"Why would an immigrant on a cook's salary buy a Glock?"
"For protection maybe? Because he felt threatened?"
"You're the psychologist, Dr. Zucker. Don't you have an answer?" ( ch. 9)

Comments: I found The Silent Girl, my first Tess Gerritsen book, after scrolling through blogs and reading positive reviews of this suspense writer. The plot is complex and involves several families in and outside of Boston's Chinatown. I liked the pairing of detective Rizzoli with forensic pathologist, Maura Isles, in the series and using Chinese mythology and Chinese martial arts or wushu in the plot.

Publisher's description: 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...had a chilling prequel.

Nineteen years earlier, a 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 may not even be human. Now she’s the target of someone, or something, deeply and relentlessly evil. Cracking a crime resonating with echoes of an ancient Chinese legend, Rizzoli and Isles must outwit an unseen enemy with...a swift, avenging blade.

About the author: Tess Gerritsen, a physician and author of several books of suspense, lives in Maine. She is the New York Times best selling author of Ice Cold.