"tremendous police procedural romance"
It's only four days before Christmas and the citizens of
Boston are in an uproar because two nuns in a cloistered
abbey are bludgeoned with one dead and the other barely
alive. Boston Medical Examiner Dr. Maura Isles discovers
that Sister Camille gave birth to a stillborn deformed
son. The other nun that was attacked, Sister Ursula was
only back in the abbey a year after doing nursing work at a
leper colony in India. She remains in intensive care but
the doctors aren't hopeful that she will recover. Maura is called out on another case when a woman is shot to
death, her hands and feet are amputated, and her facial
skin peeled away. The woman also has some strange lesions
on her body and after exhaustive study, they learn she was
suffering from Hansen's Disease. A vice president of a
company that has a factory near the leper's colony is found
shot to death, the victim of an assassin just before he was
scheduled to talk to the Justice Department. All three of
these cases are linked and once that connection is
discovered, the police will probably know who the killer is. Tess Gerritsen has joined the ranks of Patricia Cornwell
and Kathy Reichs with this fantastic and shocking medical
thriller. Jane Rizzoli, one of the more popular Boston
detectives, plays a secondary role in THE SINNER because
she is as concerned about her unexpected pregnancy as she
is about these cases. Dr. Maura Isles is the star of this
tale because it is her esoteric medical knowledge that is
needed if the case is to be solved.
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted July 13, 2003
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Not even the icy temperatures of a typical New England
winter can match the bone-chilling scene of carnage
discovered in the early morning hours at the chapel of Our
Lady of Divine Light. Within the sanctuary walls of the
cloistered convent, now stained with blood, lie two nuns-
one dead, one critically injured- victims of an unspeakable
savage attacker.
The brutal crime appears to be without motive, and the
elderly nuns in residence can offer little help in the
police investigation. But medical examiner Maura Isles's
autopsy of the dead woman yields a shocking surprise:
Twenty-four-year-old Sister Camille, the order's sole
novice, gave birth before she was murdered. Then the
disturbing case takes another stunning new turn when
another woman is found murdered in an abandoned building,
her body mutilated beyond recognition. Together, Isles and
homicide detective Jane Rizzoli uncover an ancient horror
that connects these terrible slaughters. As long-buried
secrets come to light, Maura Isles finds herself drawn
inexorably toward the heart of an investigation that
strikes closer and closer to home - and toward a dawning
revelation about the killer's identity too shattering to
consider.
As spine-tingling as it is mind-jolting, The Sinner
showcases Tess Gerritsen in peak form - bringing her
intimate knowledge of the dark depths of criminal
investigation brilliantly to bear. Beneath the layers of
startling insight into the souls of its characters, and the
richly wrought depiction of the everyday war between good
and evil, beats the unstoppable heart of an irresistible
thriller.
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