The Mephisto Club
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

In this brisk, deftly plotted thriller from bestseller Gerritsen (Vanish), Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and police detective Jane Rizzoli look into the murder of 28-year-old Lori-Ann Tucker, whose body is found Christmas morning in her apartment amid an unholy mess of severed limbs, black candles and satanic symbols rendered in blood. "Peccavi," reads one word scrawled across Tucker's wall Latin for "I have sinned." Isles and Rizzoli must sort sinner from innocent among suspects who can be found on several continents and include a group of sophisticates scholars, an anthropologist, a psychiatrist who are either cult members or crusaders against evil straight from the pages of Revelation. Other murders follow, all gruesome, all involving apocalyptic messages. On occasion, the action shifts to Europe, to a young woman running from a man she's convinced is descended from a race of fallen angels. Gerritsen has a knack for stretching believability just short of the breaking point and for amassing details that produce an atmosphere in which the most terrible possibilities can and, indeed, should occur. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A Christmas Eve murder leads Boston Medical Examiner Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli to the Mephisto Club, whose pastime-analyzing the nature of evil-is suddenly not so theoretical. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Demons-'R-Us in this formulaic entry by one of the queens of the romance/thriller hybrid (Body Double, 2004, etc.). It's a very un-merry Christmas Eve for both Boston Medical Examiner Dr. Maura Isles and her friend and colleague Detective Jane Rizzoli, who find themselves called to Beacon Hill on business--an exceptionally brutal business. A young woman has been murdered, decapitated, dismembered, and on her bedroom wall, drawn in blood, there's a gnomic message left by her killer: three upside-down crosses and some symbols that at the moment defy interpretation. Enter the Mephisto Club, a kind of international think tank (read: symbol-unravellers) dedicated to the pursuit of unhappiness for all infernal creatures. Convinced that demons walk among us--on the surface indistinguishable from ordinary folk--Mephisto members make their expertise available to law-enforcement organizations such as Interpol, Scotland Yard and now the Boston PD. Skeptical Jane isn't all that impressed. Maura is sort of on the fence as to Satan-real or Satan-metaphor, but is less than focused on the issue. Actually, neither lady is quite her single-minded self these days. Jane is distracted by the flare-up in her parents' home. Her father may be philandering; her mother has retaliated with short skirts, push-up bras and come-hither looks. As for Maura, so smitten is she with handsome priest Father Daniel Brophy ("If I could sell my soul to Satan for your love, I think I would") that she is, in effect, benched. Nevertheless, the investigation does progress, and finally the suspects are all collected, Agatha Christie-like, in a remote mountain lodge, for the dnouement. Some sizable plot holes, some purplish prose ("Friendships are broken all the time, so are hearts"), but the Gerritsen fan base will survive intact. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A Christmas Eve murder leads Boston Medical Examiner Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli to the Mephisto Club, whose pastime-analyzing the nature of evil-is suddenly not so theoretical. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles return in this taut mystery, the sixth in Gerritsen's (Vanish ) Rizzoli series. Both women are appealing, flawed heroines dealing with various personal issues, along with a new case. A gruesome murder scene with elements of a Satanic ritual leads Rizzoli to Joyce O'Donnell, the psychologist who visits and studies the man who nearly killed Rizzoli earlier in the series (The Surgeon ), and to the Mephisto Club, a Vidocq Society "type elite group interested in the more metaphysical aspects of crime, namely tracking down evil. The club members believe in Nephilim, or Watchers evil creatures (with fallen angels and human women as parents) discussed in apocryphal biblical texts, including the book of Enoch and the book of Jubilees. Rizzoli and Isles, both with demons haunting their pasts, are drawn into the group, whose members are tracking the same killer the pair seeks. Edgy suspense, well-drawn characters, and plot twists will keep readers turning pages. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/06.] Beth Lindsay, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman

In this brisk, deftly plotted thriller from bestseller Gerritsen (Vanish ), Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and police detective Jane Rizzoli look into the murder of 28-year-old Lori-Ann Tucker, whose body is found Christmas morning in her apartment amid an unholy mess of severed limbs, black candles and satanic symbols rendered in blood. "Peccavi," reads one word scrawled across Tucker's wall—Latin for "I have sinned." Isles and Rizzoli must sort sinner from innocent among suspects who can be found on several continents and include a group of sophisticates—scholars, an anthropologist, a psychiatrist—who are either cult members or crusaders against evil straight from the pages of Revelation. Other murders follow, all gruesome, all involving apocalyptic messages. On occasion, the action shifts to Europe, to a young woman running from a man she's convinced is descended from a race of fallen angels. Gerritsen has a knack for stretching believability just short of the breaking point—and for amassing details that produce an atmosphere in which the most terrible possibilities can and, indeed, should occur. (Sept.)