Tess Gerritsen Books

The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, August 2001: Tess Gerritsen left a very successful career as an internist to raise her children and devote more time to writing. After several books that have had moderate success, Gerritsen has now written a gruesome and frightening story that should put her among the top women thriller writers working today.
A serial killer is on the loose in Boston. The victims are killed in a particularly nasty way: cut with a scalpel on the stomach, the intestines and uterus removed, and then the throat slashed. The killer obviously has medical knowledge and has been dubbed "the Surgeon" by the media. Detective Thomas Moore and his partner Rizzoli of the Boston Homicide Unit have discovered something that makes this case even more chilling. Years ago in Savannah a serial killer murdered in exactly the same way. He was finally stopped by his last victim, who shot him as he tried to cut her. That last victim is Dr. Catherine Cordell, who now works as a cardiac surgeon at one of Boston's prestigious hospitals. As the murders continue, it becomes obvious that the killer is drawing closer and closer to Dr. Cordell, who is becoming so frightened that she is virtually unable to function. But she is the only person who can help the police catch this copycat killer. Or is it a copycat? To complicate matters even further, Detective Moore, often referred to as Saint Thomas as he continues to mourn the loss of his wife, is getting emotionally involved with the doctor.
The suspense in The Surgeon is almost unbearable. The writing is superb and the stunning twists and turns make it almost impossible to put down.

 

Life Support by Tess Gerritsen

Amazon.com
Former romance author and medical doctor Tess Gerritsen is writing in a new genre: medical suspense. Advertised as her "first novel," Harvest jumped onto the New York Times bestseller list and thus legions of new fans were introduced to the work of this talented author. Gerritsen's second thriller, Life Support, is as moving as any of her romances. Dr. Toby Harper works the night shift in an emergency room. More comfortable with the steady horror and tedium of emergency care than with a normal lifestyle, Toby alienates herself socially from her peers and from her sister. She spends her daytime hours alone with her mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. When elderly Alzheimer's patients from the same retirement home start dying mysteriously, Toby is the only one suspicious enough to investigate. As a result she finds herself, her mother, and her own sanity at risk.
Book Description
Tess Gerritsen joined the front ranks of thriller writers with her New York Times bestseller, Harvest. Now she weaves utter medical authenticity into another novel of gripping suspense, as a dedicated woman doctor probes too deeply into the cause of a lethal, mystifying outbreak.

The overnight ER rotation at Springer Hospital suits Dr. Toby Harper just fine -- until its calm is shattered by a man Toby admits one quiet night. Delirious and in critical condition from a possible viral infection of the brain, he barely responds to treatment...and then he disappears without a trace. But before Toby can find her missing patient, a second case occurs, revealing a chilling twist: evidence of an infection that can only be spread through direct tissue exchange. Soon Toby's on a trail that winds from a pregnant sixteen-year-old prostitute to an unexpected tragedy in her own home. Only then does she discover the unthinkable: an evil, deadly design to the frightening epidemic.

 

Gravity by Tess Gerritsen

Amazon.com
Tess Gerritsen used to be a doctor, so it comes as no great surprise that the medical aspects of her latest thriller are absolutely convincing--even if most of the action happens in a place where few doctors have ever practiced--outer space.
Dr. Emma Watson and five other hand-picked astronauts are about to take part in the trip of a lifetime--studying living creatures in space. But an alien life form, found in the deepest crevices of the ocean floor, is accidentally brought aboard the shuttle Atlantis. This mutated alien life form makes the creatures in Aliens look like backyard pets.
Soon the crew are suffering severe stomach pains, violent convulsions, and eyes so bloodshot that a gallon of Murine wouldn't help. Gerritsen brilliantly describes the difficulties of treating sick people inside a space module, and how the lack of gravity affects the process of taking blood and inserting a nasal tube. Dr. Watson does her best, but her colleagues die off one by one and the people at NASA don't want to risk bringing the platform back to earth. Only Emma's husband, a doctor/astronaut himself, refuses to give up on her. As we read along, eyes popping out of our heads, all that's missing is one of those bland NASA voices saying, "Houston, we have a problem--we're being attacked by tiny little creatures that are part human, part frog, and part mouse."
Other examples of Gerritsen's controlled medical horrors: Bloodstream, Harvest, and Life Support.

 

Call After Midnight by Tess Gerritsen

A ringing phone in the middle of the night shakes newlywed Sarah Fontaine awake. Expecting her husband's call from Longdon she hears instead an unfamiliar voice. Nick O'Hara from the U.S. State Department is calling with devastating news: Geoffrey Fontaine, Sarah's husband of two months, died in a hotel fire . . . in Berlin.
Convinced her husband is still alive, Sarah forces a confrontation with Nick that finds them crisscrossing Europe on a desperate search for Geoffrey. Trying to stay one heartbeat ahead of a dangerous killer, the become quarry in the clandestine world of international espionage, risking everything for answers that may prove fatal.

Bloodstream by Tess Gerritsen

With her acclaimed novels Harvest and Life Support, New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen has injected a new dose of adrenaline into the medical thriller. Of Harvest, Michael Palmer declared: "Only a riveting storyteller who is also a physician could have written this book." Now, Gerritsen again weaves frighteningly realistic medical detail into heart-stopping suspense, as a small-town doctor races to unravel the roots of a violent epidemic -- before it destroys everything she loves.

Lapped by he gentle waters of Locust Lake, the small resort town of Tranquility, Maine, seems like the perfect spot for Dr. Claire Elliot to shelter her adolescent son, Noah, from the distractions of the big city, and the lingering memory of his father's death. She's also hopeful that she can earn the trust of the town as she builds a new practice. But all her plans unravel with the news of a shocking incident: a teenage boy under her care has committed an appalling act of violence.

Claire has stopped prescribing a controversial drug to the troubled boy, a decision that some in town now second-guess. But before she can defend herself, a rash of new teenage violence erupts in Tranquility, forcing Claire to perform increasingly risky emergency procedures. And when one of her patients dies, the town's panic turns to fury.

Shaken by accusations, and fearful that Noah is now at risk, Claire desperately searches for a medical cause behind the murderous epidemic. She begins to suspect that the placid waters of Locust lake conceal a disturbing history -- and an insidiously lethal danger. But while Claire races to save the town -- and her son -- from harm, she discovers an even greater threat: a shocking conspiracy to manipulate nature, and turn innocents to slaughter.

Woven with the kind of action and detail only a doctor could deliver, and propelled by an expert sense of small-town terror, Bloodstream is Tess Gerritsen's most unforgettable thriller yet.

 

 

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