The Silent Girl by Tess Gerritsen

In the murky shadows of an alley lies a female’s severed hand. On the tenement rooftop above is the corpse belonging to that hand, a red-haired woman dressed all in black, the body nearly decapitated. Two strands of silver hair — not human — cling to her body. They are Rizzoli’s only clues, but they’re enough for her and medical examiner Maura Isles to make a startling discovery: This violent death had a chilling prequel.

Nineteen years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide in a Chinatown restaurant left five people dead. One woman connected to that massacre is still alive: a mysterious martial arts master who knows a secret she dares not tell, a secret that lives and breathes in the shadows of Chinatown. A secret that may not even be human. Now she’s the target of someone, or something, deeply and relentlessly evil. Cracking a crime resonating with bone-chilling echoes of an ancient Chinese legend, Rizzoli and Isles must outwit an unseen enemy with centuries of cunning — and a swift, avenging blade.

*****

Publisher’s Weekly:

“In Gerritsen’s gripping ninth Rizzoli & Isles novel (after Ice Cold), a severed hand found on a Chinatown street leads Det. Jane Rizzoli, Boston PD, to a rooftop, where she discovers a female body with a slit throat and without a hand. About the only clues to the Jane Doe’s identity are silvery hairs on the victim’s clothes that may not be human. Rizzoli and her team uncover a link to a 19-year-old murder/suicide case, in which an illegal immigrant cook, Wu Weimin, allegedly shot a waiter, three customers, and himself inside the Red Phoenix restaurant late one night. Some people in Chinatown still believe Wu was innocent. Meanwhile, in a strange coincidence, two missing girls turn out to be related to victims of the Red Phoenix massacre. Medical examiner Maura Isles plays a supporting role, though both women deal with personal and family issues that reveal their humanity and lend credibility to this deft thriller.”

*****

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. In 1987, her first novel was published. Call After Midnight, a romantic thriller, was followed by eight more romantic suspense novels. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift”, which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.

Tess’s first medical thriller, Harvest, was released in hardcover in 1996, and it marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Her suspense novels since then have been: Life Support (1997), Bloodstream (1998), Gravity (1999), The Surgeon (2001), The Apprentice (2002), The Sinner (2003), Body Double (2004), Vanish (2005), The Mephisto Club (2006), The Bone Garden (2007), The Keepsake (2008; UK title: Keeping the Dead), and Ice Cold (2010; UK title: The Killing Place.) Her books have been translated into 37 languages, and more than 20 million copies have been sold around the world.

Her books have been top-5 bestsellers in the United States and abroad. She has won both the Nero Wolfe Award (for Vanish) and the Rita Award (for The Surgeon).

Her series of novels featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the TNT television series “Rizzoli & Isles” starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

Now retired from medicine, she writes full time. She lives in Maine.

To learn more about Tess, please visit her website.