A review by octavia_cade
The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen

dark tense medium-paced

4.0

What a dreadful cover on such a good book! I liked this one better than the first, I think. I was expecting, from the series name, that there'd be a more equal focus between Rizzoli and Isles, but the latter was very much a secondary character here. From the blurb for book three, however, it seems as if she gets a bigger role there, which I would appreciate. I would also appreciate, to be honest, a crime where the victims weren't primarily women. The writing here is so intelligent, and so frequently aware - especially of the difficulty of being a woman in a job more commonly held by men - that the repeated use of sexual assault victims and murdered women seems a bit like low hanging fruit. I appreciate that the author is mirroring investigator and victim, and she makes some interesting points here, but this is a well resorted to all too often by crime writers, and it's beginning to feel a little repetitive even after only two books.

All that being said, I still really enjoyed this. The writing is intelligent, as I said, and I do enjoy reading about women in law enforcement. It gives a different perspective, and the minor theme of predatory similarities in those who hunt criminals and consume crime stories is well-taken, if not entirely original.