Editors’ pick Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Rizzoli & Isles #11
Goodreads Choice Award-Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Mystery & Thriller (2015)
Book Blurb:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are back—and they’re going into the wild to find a killer. Die Again is the latest heart-pounding thriller in Tess Gerritsen’s bestselling series, the inspiration behind TNT’s hit show Rizzoli & Isles.
When Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are summoned to a crime scene, they find a killing worthy of the most ferocious beast—right down to the claw marks on the corpse. But only the most sinister human hands could have left renowned big-game hunter and taxidermist Leon Gott gruesomely displayed like the once-proud animals whose heads adorn his walls. Did Gott unwittingly awaken a predator more dangerous than any he’s ever hunted?
Maura fears that this isn’t the killer’s first slaughter, and that it won’t be the last. After linking the crime to a series of unsolved homicides in wilderness areas across the country, she wonders if the answers might actually be found in a remote corner of Africa.
Six years earlier, a group of tourists on safari fell prey to a killer in their midst. Marooned deep in the bush of Botswana, with no means of communication and nothing but a rifle-toting guide for protection, the terrified tourists desperately hoped for rescue before their worst instincts—or the wild animals prowling in the shadows—could tear them apart. But the deadliest predator was already among them, and within a week, he walked away with the blood of all but one of them on his hands.
Now this killer has chosen Boston as his new hunting ground, and Rizzoli and Isles must find a way to lure him out of the shadows and into a cage. Even if it means dangling the bait no hunter can resist: the one victim who got away.
My Review:
Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are back in the eleventh installment of the series, and Jane again pursues with the heart of a pit bull. I always enjoy the female buddy leads who often bring an emotional quality to the novel not found in male-dominated crime fiction.
The first part of the book is first person by the lone survivor of a mass killing in Botswana. A tourist safari gone way, way wrong. The suspense starts the novel on a high note and seldom falls as the intermittent voice of the African survivor is plunked into the narrative of the gruesome murder in Boston, revealing details about the unique death.
“A woman in love is a poor judge of character.”
The account of the survivor and how she manages to live is gripping. Unfortunately, the killer also begins his unique MO in Boston and guess who discovers it? The settings are descriptive down to the buzzing of the insects and calls of the wild. Jane, herself, becomes a tiger, sure she’s caught her man until an operation proves otherwise. Still, she perseveres.
There are a few twists; it wasn’t easy to catch this guy but it’s always the ride, not the destination, right?
I enjoy how the two, Rizzoli and Maura work together, although opposites in manner and procedure. (Also a popular series on TNT). They are not so fleshed at this point in the series; assumed by now you know their intimate details. (I could do without the Jane mom thing though.) I think you’d still be able to pick up Book 11 of the series and enjoy independently.
Loved The Spy Coast back in November 2023, the first in a new series. A proven author you can really look forward to reading. Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.
Rosepoint Rating: Four point Five Stars 
Book Details:
Genre: Medical Fiction, Medical Thrillers
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 978-0345543868
ASIN: B00JI4ZSDI
Print Length: 353 pages
Publication Date: December 30, 2014
Source: Local Library
Title Link(s):
Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
The Author: Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her M.D.
While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, she began to write fiction and in 1987, her first novel, Call After Midnight, was published. It was just the first of 32 suspense novels that she’s written over a 36-year writing career. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift,” which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.
Tess’s 1996 medical thriller, Harvest, marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list and her novels have hit bestseller lists around the world ever since. Among her titles are Gravity, The Surgeon, Vanish, Listen to Me, and her upcoming spy thriller, The Spy Coast, which has just been optioned by Amazon Studios for a television series. Her books have been translated into 40 languages, and more than 40 million copies have been sold around the world.
Her series of novels featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TNT television series “Rizzoli & Isles,” starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.
She lives in Maine.
For more information on Tess Gerritsen and her novels, visit her website: http://www.tessgerritsen.com or
http://www.tessgerritsen.co.uk.
©2025 V Williams
Rosepoint Publishing 