The Mephisto Club: A Novel - Hardcover

Gerritsen, Tess

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345476999 ISBN 13: 9780345476999

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2006

Synopsis

On Christmas Eve, Boston Medical Examiner Maura Isles is summoned to the scene of a brutal killing and teams up with Detective Jane Rizzoli to investigate the victim's ties to Joyce O'Donnell, a cantankerous psychologist, and to a sinister cabal called the Mephisto Club, a group devoted to a study of evil in all its malevolent forms. 225,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

For a considerable time Tess Gerritsen has been producing some of the most challenging -- and disturbing -- crime novels being written today. A speciality, of course, is her preparedness to go further than most authors would dare to -- male or female -- and with The Mephisto Club, she once more seems prepared to face the reader and say: if you can take it, I can dish it out. While Gerritsen has found new things to say in the genre of the serial killer novel, what really distinguishes her work is the brilliant characterisation of her twin heroines, medical examiner Dr Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli. Both protagonists feature in this latest novel, and while it might not crank up the tension to the same degree as the remarkable Vanish, it will be a rare reader indeed who will be able to put this one down.

Christmas in Boston brings horror rather than good cheer when a woman's body is found dismembered in a crime scene that leaves even hardened cops queasy. Doctor Maura Isles is assigned to the case, but soon another brutal murder takes place: a woman has been mutilated and murdered on Beacon Hill, near the home of the director of the Mephisto Club. This is a clandestine society whose subject is the study of evil -- and its agenda is to confront it in its most unadulterated forms. As Detective Jane Rizzoli becomes involved, it’s quickly apparent that both women (no strangers to the bloodiest extremes of human cruelty) are up against something which is close to a distillation of the purest evil.

This isn't quite Tess Gerritsen on her very best form, but it’s still more compelling and audacious than most thrillers being written today. The legions of Tess Gerritsen fans need not hesitate. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

"Gruesome, seductive and creepily credible" (The Times)

"[Gerritsen] pulls no punches when it comes to confronting the most extreme and disturbing outer reaches of human behaviour... But we Gerritsen fans are a hardy breed and this scarifying novel delivers everything we go to her for" (Daily Express)

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0345476999
• ISBN 13: 9780345476999
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 355