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The action in VANISH takes places about a month after the doings in BODY DOUBLE, but it might as well have been on another planet. Yes, Jane Rizzoli is still pregnant (is she never going to have that damn baby!) But there isn't the slightest hint for co-star Maura Isles of the tumultuous family goings-on or the romantic confusion outlined in the earlier book. She might as well have been in a void. I'm all for being able to dip in and out of long-running series as and when, but author Tess Gerritsen's approach doesn't do much for character development. The early scenes of the book are tremendous. Firstly we see a seemingly dead woman come alive in the morgue as medical examiner Maura begins a post-mortem on her. And then there's heavily pregnant Jane subduing an undesirable in court. But sadly the rest of the book doesn't quite live up to these memorable action points. Much of VANISH is told from Jane and her husband Gabriel's viewpoint. Jane is on maternity leave, but finds herself centre stage when she is taken hostage in hospital by the mystery woman who miraculously came back to life. Meanwhile Maura, FBI agent Gabriel and Jane's Boston police colleagues must find out who this woman is. Gerritsen is a talented writer who can make you turn pages at the speed of light. I found VANISH an enjoyable enough read , but not on a par with some of her earlier work. There's the usual diet of gory autopsies, but maybe I've read too many books of late where people-smuggling from Eastern Europe is a common thread to get too excited about this one. Oh, and we have the nasty journalist syndrome, yawn, yawn. Where the book did work for me, though, was in capturing that post-9/11 atmosphere where you're never quite sure who's the good guy. And, in view of recent stories coming from the US, who can accuse Gerritsen of paranoia? Anything is possible.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, January 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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