About this title: Shifting seamlessly between the 1830s and present-day Boston, one of the world's bestselling authors delves into the past with a blazing new historical thriller featuring her beloved character, medical examiner Maura Isles.
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Binding: MASS MARKET PAPERBACK
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN-13:9780345497611ISBN:0345497619
Description: Very Good. 0345497619 Great condition paperback book, clean pages, mild creases to spine, some edge/corner rubs, this book is GREAT! Shop & Save With US. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books, Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780345497611ISBN:0345497619
Description: Very Good. 0345497619 Mass market paperback, previously read used book in very good condition, may have slight worn corners and varying degre...02609633 _ read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780345497611ISBN:0345497619
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Spine creasing and cover wear. Still looks nice. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 502 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
"Tess Gerritsen is a real physician and always has medical details-usually pretty gruesome ( which for some reason I enjoy). This book was no exception, but it had the added detail of historical fiction with the persona of Oliver Wendell Holmes and his contribution to medicine. I had how he encouraged handwashing (which was a major factor in the lessening of deaths due to childbed fever) as well as a wrote poetry and essays (Old Ironsides). I loved this book -even though as I was reading some of the scarier parts when my husband was out of town, I heard a noise and screamed so loudly my cat came running to see who was murdering me. Excellent detail of the hospitals of the time, super scary murders and historical information woven in without the reader realizing she was learning something!"
"Gerritsen continues to turn out solid thrillers with cleverly plotted mysteries. In this novel, Julia discovers skeleton remains while digging in the garden area of her new home. They turn out to be quite old and a relative of the previous owner thinks he may have a clue as to the owner of the remains is in a box of old correspondence and newspaper clippings that were collected by the house's previous owner. The story flashes back to 1830's Boston and the city is in fear of a gruesome killer on a killing spree. Interspersed into this mystery is the story of a number of medical students, including Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The author does a great job with the medical stuff (and she ought to since she is a physician) and the social classes prevelant in Boston at the time. What she churns out is a powerful historical novel with many interesting descriptions of the time period and events taking place. She ties them carefully together in a nice bundle.
If the author had chosen to end the book a chapter earlier I'd have given the book another star. The mystery is solved, the story revealed, but then she seeks to inject a supernatural/reincarnation idea into the story that made me utter out loud, "Come on!""
"I just finished reading The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen. As I thought about writing a review of the book I decided to mention where I had read an interview with her--the one that led me to select this book to read. As happens more and more often, I couldn't locate the darn magazine or remember which one the article was in. My thoughts drifted farther afield to consider in my review, how had I missed reading Gerritsen until now? One more step lodged itself in this zigzagging brain, what is my criteria for a reading list? How many more wonderful authors are there out there that I have yet to read? How do I find them? All of these considerations are to say: how have I missed reading anything by Tess Gerritsen until now? Tearing up (that is, tears) as a book is ending is definitely a sign that my emotions have been engaged. As The Bone Garden was ending, those tears welled up as I sensed such a satisfaction as to how she knitted together the skeins: characters, plot, history, and the true-to-life facts of a real life historical person. This is a tour-de-force. First, the novel. Weaving the past with the present, using a century's batch of letters to further her story, drawing the reader into the lives of her characters from the present and the past--truly, these are the hallmarks of a seasoned writer. Pleased am I to write that this book is going to become a favorite of mine. The title of the book? It directly relates to the story. There were bones she discovered as she was digging in her garden. The title is not like one of those book titles that really is clever but fails to bring to mind what the book is about. Do I really need to supply examples here? Gerritsen is a physician. This book contains grizzly operating room scenes where handfulls of internal organs are pulled out of dead bodies and deposited quickly into buckets so as to not plop onto floors. How medicine was practiced, and learned, in the 19th century is a central feature of the book. Not a very pretty history the medical learning curve, yet the truth leads ultimately to solving serious health issues that were horrible then but their remedies are today accepted as common practice. Gerritsen deftly leads her reader along, crediting one of her characters with reforms that are undeniably normal procedure in today's medical setting. I wash my hands after every visit to the restroom, I wash them after every session of digging in the dirt, again after chopping up a chicken; these are accepted standards of cleanliness. Such standards were not always known or accepted, were even scoffed at before common acceptance. This novel dwells on situations of cleanliness in the operating setting, but they are not oppressively drawn out in such a way as to make the reader say "enough, already". Second for consideration, how do I decide what I want to read? I have changed my standards over the years to accept the influence of the internet. Formerly, when I read a book I liked I would search the author's other works and read them. This technique worked handily when I had access to the Main Library stacks at the University of Texas at Austin. I plowed through all the works of all the authors, sequentially, because they were all in the library. So it seems I've always used a system of finding worthy books to read. Another system I used was recommendations I heard while listening to public radio. Then again when I was heavily into mysteries and discovered that various organizations made annual awards for their best of the year books, their selections became my criteria. With the rise of the internet I learned to sort through lists on Amazon which relied upon readers' criteria. Lately, as I have been writing my own story I have read writer's magazines and interviews with authors. Though I still can not locate the interview, that is how I stumbled upon Tess Gerritsen's works. Third point: how am I going to continue to find new authors of merit? The field is now strewn with so many best sellers whose books I've read and felt wasted my time that I've discarded the category of 'best seller' as a criterion. Interviews of authors on public radio frequently lead me to read works I'd normally miss, or not choose to read. Reviews of books I've heard on public radio often lead me to search for those books. Recommendations by friends often lead me to look at authors I've not read. Reading magazine articles by certain writers sometimes leads me to their other longer works. A couple of times, an interview of public television has led me to an author of interest. Do I go to the library and browse for a title that looks interesting. Nope. Do I check out the New York best seller list? Yes. Do I follow up by selecting a book on the list? Not unless I recognize the author. Do I follow Oprah's selections? Not after I read a couple of them and they were not that interesting. I recently began writing myself after joining an organization that enourages women to write their memoirs. The network was founded by an author so I decided to read several of her books. They are what I consider light-weight mysteries, interesting because of their localized setting, and each one has a bit of a deeper message once past the chatty and high volume of characters. If I was into cooking there are many recipes scattered through the various books and that is fun. But am I gripped by the books, not really. So I will now proceed through some of Tess Gerritsen's writings, keeping an eye out for some of my favorite author's latest publications. I'll hope to be surprised by discovering an author of uncompromising worth as I daily pick up something good to read."
"Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil-human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, medical student Norris Marshall has joined the ranks of local "resurrectionists"-those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. But when a distinguished doctor is found murdered and mutilated on university grounds, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect. With unflagging suspense and pitch-perfect period detail, The Bone Garden deftly traces the dark mystery at its heart across time and place to a finale as ingeniously conceived as it is shocking *I had never read Tess Gerritsen before but decided to after hearing that this book was good. I was hooked from the first page and it was a marathon read for me. Could not put it down!! A great mystery and I love the historical time period of the early to mid 1800's. I decided to go to the library and get several of this author's other books because now I am a fan! Rate: 5/5"
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