I Know a Secret - Tess Gerritsen

I Know a Secret is the twelfth book in Tess Gerristsen's celebrated Rizzoli and Ives series.

For those of you who haven't read this series yet (?!) - the two female leads are Boston PD detective Jane Rizzoli and her friend, Boston medical examiner Maura Isles.

This latest case is a puzzler. Two bodies with no cause of death that Isles can detect. They've both been posed after death in unusual circumstances. Rizzoli is having just as hard a time finding a connection between the two.

But there is one - and I have to say - it's clever. Using actual crimes as a starting point, Gerritsen has created an inventive plotline. Tess keeps the reader guessing with many players to choose from for the final whodunit. She skilfully manipulates the reader's thinking with dialogue and actions from many that are 'suspicious'. One of those characters is given a voice and chapters of her own. These chapters are 'teasers' with actions and motives being slowly doled out. I did have my suspicions, but was happy to find that I wasn't completely right at the end. And that ending leaves the door cracked open for further stories....

The personal lives of these two leads, as well as the supporting cast, are just as much of draw for me as the main plot is in this series. Their lives have moved along in real time, with a few somewhat startling threads. (Maura's mother is something else....) Their human quirks, ruminations, successes and failures only serve to make them more 'real'. The dynamic between the two leads is believable and enjoyble.

Gerristen's take on the medical aspects of her books is excellent, a she herself is a licensed doctor.

I Know a Secret can absolutely be read as a stand alone, but the evolution of this pair is worth reading from the first book, The Surgeon. An entertaining, enjoyable read for me - and one of the best of the twelve. Read an excerpt of I Know a Secret.

There's a nice cover blurb from Lee Child: "Suspense doesn’t get smarter than this."