DISPATCH :: Operation Warrior Library thanks Tess Gerritsen

Since we've received close to 500 books from nearly two dozen authors, I need a little help reading and posting all these books in a timely manner. So, guest reading and blogging today about Tess Gerritsen is my lovely wife. Take it away, Audrey!

I had given up on forensic procedural thrillers. Sure, I loved Scarpetta and Brennan. For a while I couldn’t get enough. But then I OD’d on a gazillion CSI episodes – like millions of other viewers, I could BE a forensic investigator myself by now. I was many bodies past the saturation level.* But here it is, well past midnight and my bedtime. Turns out there was a really sick serial killer story I hadn’t heard before. And now my bedside light is gonna stay on all night.

Ms. Gerritsen was kind enough to donate a big box of her books to Operation Warrior Library. The titles tantalized me, I’m sure I had that look in my eye that I sometimes see in Paul’s (he’s a former smoker and can occasionally be enticed for a few puffs by my mother, of all people). But it was the back cover copy of Body Double that sealed the deal. A pathologist finds her doppelganger on her own dissecting table? Got me.

And there went the next 4 or so hours.

I don’t want to risk spoiling the mystery with too many details. But this plot is sure to resonate with – and freak out – women my age,** particularly those who are pregnant or who struggled with infertility or have adopted. Yeah, it’s effing twisted. But even better than the creepy buried-alive scenes and icky intricate details of crushed skulls are the characters – Dr. Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli are fully realized and interesting beyond their careers. No placeholder people for medical techniques and police jargon here. And while Rizzoli might be a little obsessed with her weight, it’s only because she’s pregnant, not because her entire characterization is supposed to be summed up in her never being happy with her outfit because she thinks she looks fat. Cool women you’d want to know, except that would mean you’d have a dead husband and were prime suspect or something.

As the cover for the paperback tells you, Tess Gerritsen is a bestselling author and doesn’t really need me promoting her. But if, like me, thought you had read it all in this genre, YOU ARE MISSING OUT. We’ve made it really easy to order books from OWL authors, just click here. Proceeds help pay for shipping costs on new book donations.

* Full disclosure: I do actually watch Bones, but because of my Buffy allegiance only originally. Best partner chemistry since Dave and Maddie on Moonlighting, I swear, so now I’m hooked.

** Argh. Now I have to admit I’m turning 40 in a few months.