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A review by frickative
Die Again by Tess Gerritsen
3.0
Die Again is a pretty solid installment in Tess Gerritsen's 'Rizzoli and Isles' series, albeit one with a few issues. Gerritsen is one of those authors whose new books I'll buy without question, to the extent that I started this one without even reading the blurb. We're thrown straight into a safari in Botswana, where English tourist Millie is growing apart from her boyfriend, and developing a crush on their enigmatic tour guide Johnny. It was only after the first chapter that I read the cover summary, and learned that all of Millie's companions would disappear never to be seen again, leaving her to stumble out of the bush weeks later on the point of death. Awesome, I thought, here we go. And the Botswana chapters really were exciting, as one by one her fellow travellers were picked off by an unseen killer. The problem is, I think I enjoyed these early chapters more than the ones set in Boston, following our protagonists, Detective Jane Rizzoli and forensic pathologist Maura Isles.
After five seasons of the Rizzoli and Isles TV series, it's becoming increasingly jarring to return to the books and remember that on paper, the friendship between these women is not that strong. We learn early on that they've barely even seen each other since their last case, and to me that's just a bit sad. As the book goes on, the recurring plots (Maura wondering whether she should leave Boston, Jane's mother's romantic struggles) get little more than a few pages of coverage, and by the end everything is still very much up in the air, albeit with a possible angle on the next book in the form of Maura's serial killer mother.
My biggest problem with Die Again is that I think most readers will guess the twist in the tale long before Jane does, which means there's a good fifty pages or so in there where she's treading water when she should be surging ahead. The realisation did make for a great aha moment, but leaving the detectives miles behind has the unfortunate effect of making them seem slow off the mark, which isn't ideal in the heroes we should be rooting for. In it's favour, I did appreciate that the crime in this novel was essentially ordinary - Gerritsen sometimes peppers her plots with secret cults and elements of the supernatural, which can spoil a book for me, so I was glad that for the most part here things stayed within the realm of the normal. All in all it was't my favourite in the series, but I enjoyed reading it, I know I'll be back for the twelfth installment, and I'm very excited to see Gerritsen speak on her upcoming UK book tour.
After five seasons of the Rizzoli and Isles TV series, it's becoming increasingly jarring to return to the books and remember that on paper, the friendship between these women is not that strong. We learn early on that they've barely even seen each other since their last case, and to me that's just a bit sad. As the book goes on, the recurring plots (Maura wondering whether she should leave Boston, Jane's mother's romantic struggles) get little more than a few pages of coverage, and by the end everything is still very much up in the air, albeit with a possible angle on the next book in the form of Maura's serial killer mother.
My biggest problem with Die Again is that I think most readers will guess the twist in the tale long before Jane does, which means there's a good fifty pages or so in there where she's treading water when she should be surging ahead. The realisation did make for a great aha moment, but leaving the detectives miles behind has the unfortunate effect of making them seem slow off the mark, which isn't ideal in the heroes we should be rooting for. In it's favour, I did appreciate that the crime in this novel was essentially ordinary - Gerritsen sometimes peppers her plots with secret cults and elements of the supernatural, which can spoil a book for me, so I was glad that for the most part here things stayed within the realm of the normal. All in all it was't my favourite in the series, but I enjoyed reading it, I know I'll be back for the twelfth installment, and I'm very excited to see Gerritsen speak on her upcoming UK book tour.