Hello everyone!
So for my last book review before my version of booktober begins, I picked an oldie-goldie because I've recently fallen back into the trap of re-reading these yet again.
I also promise there will be info about what's happening in October waiting soon enough, come Monday if all goes well.
For the time being it's still book review hour, which means time to make sure our guns are locked and loaded.
I haven't read any Tess Gerritsen book in a long time actually, and then I went and started reading the second one yet again, which meant I would eventually pick up the rest of the series one more time. When the days turn colder and the rain starts falling, I love picking up a good thriller and munching through it while safely cocooned in a warm blanket.
There's just something so cozy about the scene, isn't it?
Nothing remotely cozy about the book we're reviewing tonight, however.
The Apprentice makes all your worst nightmares come true.
Though to be fair I've also seen one not of the series I kind of want to read.
I'm hopeless LOL.
But back to The Apprentice.
The second in the series, The Apprentice brings back characters we first met in The Surgeon, when Warren Hoyt, a serial killer, was hunting down lonely, vulnerable women who'd survived rape, to slaughter them. He's currently serving out his sentence in prison, but for some odd reason he's not locked up so tight he can't breathe; see, he's a model prisoner and gets more than a few liberties, which is INSANE considering everyone knows just what he's done.
Like, the dude straight up sliced women open. He does not DESERVE liberties.
Meanwhile in the real world, our Jane Rizzoli is doing what she does best, aka catching killers, which in this one case that opens the novel up, seems easier said than done. The victim gets the moniker Airplane Man, because they realize he was either stowing away on a plane or was pushed out, and he landed rather hard.
What a way to open the story!
Things change dramatically pretty quick after that, however, because Rizzoli gets a call from a different detective, Korsak, who wants her to come look at a homicide outside her own jurisdiction but with some disturbing similarities to a person she knows very well: the Surgeon, aka Hoyt.
Unfortunately, nobody believes her and say she's just seeing shadows when there are none.
But considering the fact that there's a wealthy couple dead, the husband was tied up and made to watch as the perp subdued and raped his wife, and the wife was then dragged off, it seems like there's a copy-cat working, either way.
And when they discover a second crime scene similar to the one above, everyone's on board with the words 'serial killer' again.
I rolled my eyes right along with Rizzoli, honestly.
There's a bunch of problems that come home to roost with that second killing, though: not only do they find the burial ground in the park, and realize there's at least one more victim, but probably more, Hoyt manages to escape prison because, surprise, surprise, they treated him as just another prisoner when he should have been under constant supervision by people much, much smarter than the average Joe.
He's now out and about, and the insane thing is he connects with this current killer, something the police can only speculate about (actually, Rizzoli makes a fair point about it, but again it's all up in the air for some reason) until they find a body dumped in a graveyard over a tomb that says 'Rizzoli' on the granite.
Well my, my, my.
Suddenly EVERYONE agrees that the Surgeon is working with the Dominator, as they're calling the new killer, and Rizzoli was right all along, not that the victory matters to her.
She's got bigger issues at hand.
Namely, that the FBI is tailing along with the investigation and one Gabriel Dean keeps popping up wherever he wants, whenever he wants, with instant access and no information forthcoming, which basically proves just why the police usually doesn't like working with the feds. Like, come on, if you have info, sharing is caring, you know?
Instead, he seems to want to hold all the secrets over Rizzoli's head, recommends her to be removed from the position of lead detective on the Dominator case, and pretty much tries to scare her into a corner.
Side note: Korsak is side-lined by a heart attack which forces Rizzoli into closer cooperation with Dean, natch.
Nothing scares Rizzoli, however, or almost nothing, but being on the receiving end of the Surgeon's attentions before, and now knowing the man is playing games with her so that he can get his hands on her again, there's something extra creepy about that.
Doesn't mean she's not rip-shit pissed with Dean, however, and I am, too.
You're just a prick, Dean, plain and simple.
A trip to Washington and to the Senator who's pulling several strings behind all that's happening doesn't help much and just makes me snarl more because Dean's been keeping more secrets than giving out answers, secrets that could have gone a LONG way to help Rizzoli with her case, but of course there's no way he would have shared. That's just not who he is, he's not a team player, which is fairly obvious at this point.
The Dominator apparently began his atrocities in Kosovo during the war in 1999, and then migrated over to the US after the job over there was done, making Dean and the Senator think it's one of the Special Forces boys and that the military is never going to admit to it.
Fine and dandy, but has either of you machos heard about inter-agency cooperation, and NDAs? No? Thought as much.
For all that, Rizzoli and Dean end up in bed together before she needs to fly back to Boston after her apartment is broken into, another mind game Hoyt plays with her. She doesn't exactly leave on a good note because Dean wants her to loosen up enough to allow him to take care of her, but she's pretty much not going to give him an inch, and he's asking for an arm, so.
Don't worry, it's all going to be solved soon, because when she gets off the plane she's kidnapped.
Yep, Jane Rizzoli ends up kidnapped, the Dominator pretending he's her limo driver and then sticking her in the trunk of his car, though he ends up shot for his efforts as soon as they're in the middle of nowhere where the Surgeon is waiting.
The Dominator dies, but Rizzoli's second bullet misses - sort of - and she only manages to hit Hoyt in the back, paralyzing him from the neck down.
Then she tells her partner Frost that she's taking the day off, and walks into Dean's arms after he pops up to see what the hell happened and if she's alright.
Talk about SOME happy ending, right?
This book was just as chilling as the second one and full of medical jargon because the Dominator and the Surgeon both subdued their victims and then did unspeakable things to them, the Dominator even after they were dead.
Some people are basically just broken inside, and there's no helping them.
There's also a subplot with a psychologist that keeps on visiting Hoyt because she has a theory that he needs to be treated like he was a traumatic brain injury instead of as the sociopath he is, because he fell and cracked his skull as a kid. Well, boo hoo, he later opened women up with a scalpel while they were still breathing. There's no jury that will be lenient with him, lady.
Seriously.
We are also introduced to Dr. Maura Isles for the first time in this book, and the Queen of the Dead does not disappoint, though her role is pretty minimal in the Dominator chase. She does, however, assist Rizzoli in identifying the killing methods and thus the killer, and will be one of the two main voices telling the story in book three, The Sinner, becoming a main character from there on out.
I enjoyed the thrill of the chase in this book, but really wanted to smack Dean upside the head a number of times, considering. His good looks really don't help him whatsoever in the personality department a lot of the time.
Bu the two women have a long road ahead of them so he's bound to pop up again as the love interest to our Rizzoli sooner rather than later, so I suppose we're stuck with him.
Until the next hunt, however, just remember that this book, at least, is thankfully fiction.
xx
*image not mine
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