Today Mandie takes over the blog with a review of Listen To Me, the brand new Rizzoli and Isles thriller from Tess Gerritsen. Thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the tour invite, and to publisher Transworld Books for the advance copy. Here’s what the book is all about:
Release Date: 07 July 2022
Publisher: Bantam Press
About the Book
Rizzoli & Isles return, in the nail-biting new thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.
The murder of Sofia Suarez is both gruesome and seemingly senseless. Why would anyone target a respected nurse who was well-liked by her friends and her neighbours? As Detective Jane Rizzoli and Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles investigate the baffling case, they discover that Sofia was guarding a dangerous secret — a secret that may have led the killer straight to her door.
Meanwhile, Jane’s watchful mother Angela Rizzoli is conducting an investigation of her own. She may be a grandmother, not a police detective, but she’s savvy enough to know there’s something very strange, perhaps even dangerous, about the new neighbours across the street. The problem is, no one believes her, not even her own daughter.
Immersed in the hunt for Sofia’s killer, Jane and Maura are too busy to pay attention to Angela’s fears. With no one listening to her, and danger mounting in her neighbourhood, Angela just may be forced to take action on her own…
Mandie’s Thoughts
Listen to Me is the 13th book by Tess Gerritsen in the Rizzoli and Isles series and this is where I have to admit it is also the first one I have read. I do have all the others in my TBR pile, and I plan to play catch up very soon. Having said that you can read this book in isolation and not feel like you have missed anything that would detract from your enjoyment of the book.
Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are called to the murder of Sofia Suarez. The nurse appears to have been the victim of a robbery gone wrong but as Jane digs into the last few days of her life she finds that Sofia has been making a lot of calls that link back to the past. What she can’t work out is why and does it have anything to do with her murder. If that isn’t enough to be dealing with she also has to contend with her mother Angela who is convinced that there is something going on with her new neighbours and she wants Jane to check it out. Even when she is told to back off by the local police and Jane she just can’t let it go and it ends up putting her in danger.
The relationship between Jane and her mother can at times be quite funny especially when Angela thinks that Jane can just run roughshod over any police department and investigations just because she wants her to, but when push comes to shove Jane will always help her mother out when she can. I was a little confused by the opening chapter of the book and it did take me a little while to work out where it would fit in to the main crime but as I read further, things slowly managed to make more sense. Whilst I kind of worked out the links to events, I have to admit that I was initially wrong as to who committed the crime. Maura Isles did appear to be a little side-lined in this book, but I can see why this would be the case as a lot of the investigations took place outside their normal area.
The chapters were based on different people’s point of view on what was going on, helping the reader get more invested in the story and I found that this also helped with the pace of the book, keeping me turning page after page and ensuring I was hooked and finishing the book in a day. With a good blend of investigations and personal lives the characters are certainly not one dimensional and you find yourself immersed in their lives.
I was a big fan of the TV series inspired by the books and whilst I could hear the characters voices and see the similarities, there were also differences that gave a different view of the world of Rizzoli and Isles, and I would recommend everyone should delve in and discover it for themselves.
About the Author
Bestselling author TESS GERRITSEN is also a physician, and she brings to her novels her first-hand knowledge of emergency and autopsy rooms. Her thrillers starring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TV series Rizzoli & Isles. But Tess’s interests span far more than medicine and crime. As an anthropology student at Stanford University, she catalogued centuries-old human remains, and she continues to travel the world, driven by her fascination with ancient cultures and bizarre natural phenomena.
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I return to read Mandie’s review to comment – having just finished reading “Listen to me”.
I, too, had to find a fit for the beginning chapter and I felt that the book started slow. Even with Angela snooping into (all of) her neighbor’s lives, the thrill took long to hook me. But Gerritsen writes very well. I love how she creates atmosphere, her foreshadowing gives me chills, and the dual story-line she weaved in “Listen to me” was engrossing.
I read once an interview with Tess Gerritsen and she shared her writing style. First draft is pen on paper while she let’s her story take her where it would. Till she’s about half way through. Then, only then the hard work begins, when she sits and stares and labors over how to work herself out of the knot. She always does. Brilliantly.
With this in mind, I could see how the ending came through and it was a marvelous idea. I’ll have to read the book again and make myself see all the clues she weaved in her tale – clues I do remember, but I never put them together.
I only wish we would have witnessed Jane’s”a-ha” moment. How she figured it all out?
Like Mandie said, there isn’t a lots of Rizzoli – Isles interaction in this book and Angela, like she always does in life, took over half of the story 🙂 But the two story-lines were incredible, each one thrilling in its own way, Angela’s humorous at times and – for those with a delicate stomach – not even that gruesome (a detail I discovered I missed).
It will be a long stretch until the next Rizzoli and Isles book comes out (it’s been five years from the last). But Tess Gerritsen is a writer I started to admire and I’ll probably read at least some of her books all over again.
Caution: the first books depict the crimes in detail, and as the victims are women (something that Tess Gerritsen chose to do as a request of her female readers…as she mentioned in an interview) an age limit would be advisable and not for sensible readers.
Thank you for a great review, Mandie. 🙂
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