About the Book-The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
The Surgeon has been locked up for a year but his chilling legacy still haunts the city, and especially Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli. But now a new killer is at work and Rizzoli senses something horrifyingly familiar about this murderer’s modus operandi.
It’s when the FBI starts taking an interest in the investigation that Rizzoli begins to wonder just what makes this case so different, so dangerous that the Feds feel the need to get involved.
But then the unthinkable happens: the Surgeon escapes. And suddenly there are two brilliant, twisted killers on the loose – master and apprentice, united in their hunt for the most challenging prey of all: the very woman who is hunting them.
“Is this all we are? A necklace of chemicals? Where, in the double helix, does the soul lie?”
Read on for our review of The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
Our Review of The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
So I basically went backwards with this book. Usually, people pick up the book, become a fan of it and want to complete the experience by watching the characters come alive on screen. In my case, I watched the whole eight seasons ( there was a total of eight… right?) and needless to say had each of these characters ( actors basically ) etched in my mind. So as a reverse process, I was actually trying to place the actors who played the roles into what was being written in the book. I think that made it weird because honestly, I realised that the TV adaptation had a completely opposite version of book characters. Rizzoli is short in height and it is referred to quite a bit in the book ( or did I misread it? )But what majorly surprised me was that Rizzoli in the book is a bit reserved, tempered and hard to approach (which can be annoying too ) but the TV version of both Isles and Rizzoli is much cooler and affable. Oh lord !! I think I am moving away from the actual point. Well, this was something that kept roaming the hallways of my brain so I just wanted to put it out there.
Let’s talk about the book and completely keeping it aside from its TV adaptation. Though the book has a new serial case I strongly feel that this is best read as a follow-up to the previous book “The Surgeon”. This book is sort of a continuation of what happens in that book. Plus the reference is quite a lot to the previous book that without reading the prequel you might miss out on the nuisances and context
Speaking of nuisances, I think the one thing that bothered me is the round and round circle. There is a lot of build-up and paper works to actual incidents and developments. This though is still somewhat acceptable because when things happen it is so fast-paced that it covers for the dulls in between.
Two things bothered me a lot in this book.
A) the fact that the book characters and TV characters are different like day and night. So having watched the whole 8/9 seasons of the show, they had been imprinted in my brain and I couldn’t stop comparing. But that is not an issue with the book but mine
B) the major trouble was this next point. The whole book sort of appeared to me as a whining saga of Rizzoli and how she is scared but not “that scared” of the surgeon. How she is “cautious” yet “spidey senses” tingling all the time. We could understand in the context of the previous book but when something keeps getting repeated over and over again it gets a bit annoying. I found that the book is 80% anxiety and panic episodes of Rizzoli ( isles practically has no role in this except for guest appearances). She keeps. Analysing,
Overanalyzing and suspecting and chasing actual events in the book.
Also undoubtedly this book is obsessed with the main nemesis “ The Surgeon” The book plays an ode to him and ironically when the plot actually has this character showing up, it is such lacklustre.
As you can see my major issues are with plot treatments
Conclusion
So in conclusion I would say that this book would be best read after “The Surgeon” since this is more of a continuation and finale to what happens in that book. The book is definitely a good thriller. The book has major dips in between as there are a lot of inner battles and monologues that fill the pages and the actions are pretty much slim. But overall the medical and investigation aspects are fun.
Squirrel Rating
