Vanish

Vanish is the fifth of Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli/Isles series. The story starts with Maura Isles discovering a female in a body bag, an apparent drowning victim, who isn’t dead. Transferred to the hospital, the woman becomes violent, shoots a security guard and takes hostages. Jane Rizzoli, about to give birth, happens to be in the wrong place and becomes one of the hostages. Her husband, FBI Agent Gabriel Dean, her Boston PD colleagues and Maura Isles spare no effort trying to track down the woman’s identity and her reasons for the siege. Once again, Gerritsen brings the reader a gripping drama, with Jane Rizzoli providing many lighter moments. In the court scene, Rizzoli conclusively proves that, even at 9 months pregnant, she is still a cop. As well as exploring Rizzoli’s doubts about her mothering ability and her concern with her lack of maternal instinct (topical for many first-time mothers), Gerritsen touches on subjects as diverse as sex slave trafficking, war profiteering and sieges and negotiators. As always, an excellent plot with a few twists makes this book hard to put down. Gerritsen at her finest.