A HARD DEATH - Jonathan Hayes

First line: "The airboat was nearing the edges of the Glades, wending its way through a series of small sloughs."

Forensic pathologist, Dr. Edward Jenner has left New York City where his medical license was suspended and political fall-out from his actions in a serial murder case haunt his every step. Jenner's former mentor asks Jenner to come down and cover his position as the Douglas County, Florida, medical examiner while he and his wife go on vacation. Jenner's solace is shattered, however, when a car containing the murdered corpses of Jenner's mentor and his mentor's wife is pulled out of a canal. Jenner's situation only grows worse when he receives an phone tip leading him to the hanging corpses of four more bodies. As law enforcement begins to learn of Jenner's past and cut him off from the investigation, Jenner's determination to avenge his mentor soars.

A HARD DEATH is one intense thriller. Jonathan Hayes brings the experience of a veteran medical examiner to the pages of this book. His descriptions, while not gratuitously grotesque, are realistic and allow the reader to experience first hand:

"It wouldn't be like on TV, where you can tell the dead by the unearthly pallor of their skin and their frigid blue lips: in the real world, most dead people look like live people, look as though, if you called to them loudly enough, they'd sit up and climb down from the table."

The realism flows through to his characters as well. Despite their flaws, there's a level of empathy for the characters, for their struggles and experiences. And all of the characters are complex, multi-layered beings - points of beauty, glaring foibles, blunders and perfections. I found Hayes' characters to be a major strength in A HARD DEATH.

The characters combined with a quick-paced plot kept me up late turning pages. Hayes found a setting, the Florida Glades, that set the tone for eerie atmosphere, but it's his use of the setting, the events that take place in that setting, that builds the intensity and the suspense.

We waited awhile for A HARD DEATH, but this novel was certainly worth that wait. Hayes has written a chillingly wonderful forensic thriller.

A HARD DEATH is now available in hardcover from Harper (ISBN: 978-0-061-69176-8).

Harvest - Tess Gerritsen

I guess it was the week of Tess's for me! This time the author is Tess. Harvest is the first book by Tess Gerritsen I've read/listened to. According to the audio case, Harvest is Gerritsen's debut novel.

Abby DiMatteo is a top-notch second-year resident at Bayside Hospital in Boston. Dr. Wettig, the supervisor of the residency program, is known to be a hard-nose who never compliments any of the residents, but he shows a lot of respect for Abby. In addition to the respect she is receiving from her supervisor, the organ transplant team is also showing interest in Abby. They want her to be a part of their team when she finishes her residency.

Abby is ecstatic about the attention she is receiving from the transplant team, and even more excited when her boyfriend Mark, who is also on the transplant team, asks her to marry him. But all the wonderfulness starts to fade after Abby helps a teenage boy get the heart transplant that is rightfully his over a 40-year-old woman who's husband is wealthy and wants to "pay" for the heart. The teenage boy is saved but the cost may be Abby's life.

I'll just start this review by saying Tess Gerritesen knows how to write a thriller! Even though she writes the story so that the reader can make connections early on, the approach doesn't deter from the anticipation or excitement at all. It is kind of like watching a scary movie where someone enters a dark room with eerie music playing. You KNOW something is going to jump out at the person, but you still jump out of your seat when it happens. That is what this book easily compares to.

The concept of buying and selling organs in this book is nothing short of terrifying. Gerritsen writes in such a way as to evoke a tremendous amount of emotion from the reader: fear, horror, anger, mortification.

Gerritsen also has a gift when it comes to characterization. I absolutely fell in love with Yakov, a young Russian orphan who was so smart and had so much curiosity. He yearned for companionship, looking for it where ever he could find it.

And Abby is another great female character. She is faced with multiple lawsuits that the wealthy husband is arranging with all his money. She is a resident; she has no money to even begin to try to fight them, but she feels that she must do something. I found myself identifying with her frustration over the fact that money is the controlling factor, not what is RIGHT. Abby isn't a superwoman, she doesn't have the super powers to trump the evils of money. And sadly, everything doesn't turn out happily ever after. But it turns out believable, which in the end makes the book that much more frightening.

Again, I listened to this book on audio. This one is a Recorded Books version, read by George Guidall. One of the elements of Guidall's reading that stood out for me was how his pace increased with action that was taking place in the plot. I find myself doing that when I read myself, so I appreciated his tendency to do the same thing. While I enjoy Guidall's readings and I think he did a very nice job on this book, I also think his sound is a little too old for the characters that this book centered on. And I'm also a little curious why they chose a male reader over a female reader for this particular book. But, as with In Big Trouble, these factors aren't enough for me not to highly recommend it. I had a great experience listening to this audiobook.

Happy Reading!