Tess Gerritsen: The Surgeon

By JIM EAGLES*

Tess Gerritsen's latest offering is a marvellous example of the new thriller genre focused on medical detectives unravelling brutal murders by dissecting not just the crime but the bodies.

She outlines in horrifying detail not only the surgical atrocities committed by her latest mass murderer - nicknamed, for obvious reasons, "the surgeon" - but also the more constructive bodily slicing of pathologists trying to identify the cause of death and emergency staff trying to prevent it.

But fortunately this book goes beyond that gory sensationalism and also offers a fascinating mystery: how is it that the killer seems to be a man who was shot dead two years before?

There are also some nicely drawn characters: most notably the woman doctor who shot the bad guy first time around and now seems the main target of his apparent reincarnation, and the two contrasting police officers - the sympathetic male detective and his bristly female partner - who eventually slice through the confusion.

The result is a disturbing, fascinating and gripping tale which is definitely not for the squeamish.

Random House

$34.95

* Jim Eagles is the Herald business editor.