The Bone Garden

In her 11th medical thriller, "The Bone Garden," Maine physician Tess Gerritsen turns from the exploits of Boston detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles to give readers a historical thriller about a serial killer - known as the West End Reaper - loose on the streets of 1830s Boston.
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The tale of crime from a bygone era emerges as the parallel plot to the modern-day story of a divorcee who finds human bones buried in her Weston yard. Isles appears briefly, but her presence is not essential to Gerritsen's story. Soon the protagonist, teacher Julia Hamill, is spending much of her summer break in Maine going through old letters and other papers with the octogenarian relative of her house's previous owner.

Gerritsen has won praise for her prior medical thrillers, and her previous effort, "The Mephisto Club," was a bestseller. "The Bone Garden," however, does not quite come together. The parallel stories are uneven, with the greatest weight going to the 19th-century murder mystery. The modern-day tale is part narrative device and part love story, but it isn't hook enough to justify its existence, and the plot around Julia's life is barely developed, leaving the reader to wonder if it is necessary at all.

The historical murder mystery fares better, but the suspense sometimes lags. This plot centers on an Irish immigrant, Rose Connolly, and on a group of medical students studying at the hospital where Rose's sister, Aurnia, died in childbirth. Aurnia's husband is a brute with little interest in raising the baby girl, so Rose takes charge of her niece, Margaret, and is determined to keep her from mysterious parties equally bent on snatching her. Medical student Norris Marshall, a poor farm boy from Belmont out of place among his gentleman classmates, takes an interest in Rose's plight. Along the way, people associated with the young aunt turn up dead.

Norris is earnest and idealistic, admirable traits, to be sure, but a tad boring in a hero. Rose is plucky, panicked, devastatingly poor, and a good deal more interesting than Norris. Gerritsen also includes a fictionalized Oliver Wendell Holmes, the physician and author who was the father of the famed jurist, in the group of medical students, and that adds some spice.

Gerritsen, as always, puts her medical training to ghoulish use in her descriptions of both the murders and the dismayingly frequent deaths in childbirth in the hospital's maternity ward. These vivid descriptions are not for the faint-hearted.

Indeed, despite the book's shortcomings, the medical practices that Gerritsen depicts are fascinating. In addition to the well-drawn scenes in the hospital, she takes readers on grisly journeys with a procurer of cadavers, to be used in the training of medical students. Here, too, she calls on her experience as a physician to render situations in excruciatingly horrific detail. Boston readers will also appreciate her description of the mid-19th-century city and its environs.

"The Bone Garden" ends with some neat plot twists, both in the murder mystery and the mystery of maternal deaths. Much as readers might wish that Gerritsen had sharpened the thriller and done more with the contemporary story, they will come away from the book with an appreciation of the evolution of medical practice.

Not bad, but not great either (1/1 people found this helpful)

Usually I can't wait to get back to a Gerritsen novel - this one didn't raise the same sense of anticipation and I wasn't sure why since I normally enjoy historically based crime. Reading Mrs E Cochrane's review was interesting and I think might explain the problem. I've never read any of Gerritsen's earlier works (pre-her-series-characters)but whilst I was reading this book I started to suspect that it had been written much earlier in her career prior to the suspense thrillers she's known for now.

Different from Gerritsen's usual style (1/1 people found this helpful)

I agree with the other reviewers that the cover synopsis is somewhat misleading.
I was surprised that so much of the novel was set in the past. It's clear that the historical elements were well researched. The graphic medical descriptions are gruesome.
For me the novel leant too much towards being a historical romance with a thriller aspect to it. However, it is an enjoyable read that is engaging even if not as gritty as Gerritsen's usual style.

Difficult to get into (0/1 people found this helpful)

It was probably only after I was 30% though that I really started to get into this. In the end the book was worth it.
A little too depressing and graphic for my taste, reading this at bedtime resulted in some unpleasant dreams.

An excellent read (1/1 people found this helpful)

I've never really been into books that jump from one century to another. When I first started reading The Bone Garden I really wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it but how wrong I was. The story line was strong and kept you reading as you weren't sure which direction it was going in. As I got into the book I was hooked I thought I'd guess who the reaper was but even to the end of the book I didn't guess correctly, it's always enjoyable reading a book that keeps you guessing to the end. The story starts with the discovery of bones in a garden in the present day and then jumps back to the 1800's and the medical world of that time, it is gruesome in parts with the descriptions espically the maternity ward and autopy's but it gives an understanding of how far the medical profession has come, can you imagine some of the practices described in the book happening now! There really was everything in this book murder, romance, mystery and the odd bit of grave robbing! An excellent read all round.

Tess Gerritsen

Reader Reviews:

Medical mysteries offering twist to a historical thriller (1/1 people found this helpful)

Not bad, but not great either (1/1 people found this helpful)

Different from Gerritsen's usual style (1/1 people found this helpful)

Difficult to get into (0/1 people found this helpful)

An excellent read (1/1 people found this helpful)

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