Book Review: The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen

The Apprentice is the second book in the Rizzoli and Isles series and if you have watched the Rizzoli and Isles tv-show reading The Apprentice is just like watching the pilot of the tv-show. At certain times when I was reading the book I wasn't sure if I had read the book before or not because of the similarities between the book and the tv-show.

The first book The Surgeon (reviewed here) does not include Dr. Maura Isles but she is introduced in The Apprentice. 

I am not the only one of my kind who walks this earth. Somewhere, there is another. And he waits for me… The Surgeon has been locked up for a year but his chilling legacy still haunts the city, and especially Boston detective Jane Rizzoli. But now a new killer is at work and Rizzoli senses something horrifyingly familiar about him.

Then the FBI starts taking an interest in the investigation and Rizzoli begins to wonder just what makes this case so different and so dangerous?

But then the unthinkable happens: the Surgeon escapes. And suddenly there are two twisted killers on the loose – master and apprentice… 

While I was reading the book I wasn't really sure if I liked it or not, and even now I am still not sure. I think it was because how similar it was to the Pilot of Rizzoli and Isles that I somehow didn't get to enjoy the book as much as I probably would have if I hadn't known the plot.

There are several new important characters introduced in The Apprentice, as I mentioned previously Dr. Maura Isles is introduced as well as the FBI agent Gabriel Dean. 

The book is set up as Tess Gerritsen usually sets up her books, there main story is written in third person and then there are couple of chapters written in first person that are from some outsiders part of the story.

And of course some quotes, I love quotes to see how the book is written. 

"Today I watched a man die." 

"The blood pours from his chest like holy water from a sacred spring. I press my palm to the wound, bathing my skin in that liquid warmth, and blood coats my hand like a scarlet glove."

"But this is not his work. Warren Hoyt is safely locked away in a place he can’t escape. I know, because I put the bastard there myself."

"Rizzoli brought home a pizza from the deli around the corner and excavated an ancient head of lettuce from the bottom of her refrigerator vegetable bin. She peeled off brown leaves until she reached the barely edible core. It was a pale and unappetizing salad, which she ate out of duty and not for pleasure."

"Happy people are self-contained; they breathe different air and are subject to different laws of gravity."

"The question, asked so softly, made her fall silent. She resented his probing. Resented, most of all, that he’d recognized a truth she could not admit. Warren Hoyt had left scars. All she had to do was look down at her hands to be reminded of the damage he’d inflicted. But the worst damage was not physical. What she had lost, in that dark basement last summer, was her sense of invincibility. Her sense of confidence. Warren Hoyt had taught her how vulnerable she really was."

"‘It’s just like last summer,’ murmured Marquette, still staring at the trees. ‘The Surgeon started killing around this time, too.’ ‘It’s the heat,’ said Rizzoli as she reached for her cell phone. ‘It brings the monsters out.’"

Even if I am not sure if I love this book or not I still would recommend it, mostly because the Rizzoli and Isles book series is great and this book is important for the flow of the rest of the series.

Bisous