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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Keepsake by Tess Gerritsen

A new procedural debuted on TV this week, based on a series by Tess Gerritsen centered around a police detective and a medical examiner. So of course, I decided to check out the books. My library had only a couple, from the middle of the series, but I threw caution into the wind and got The Keepsake anyway (an unusual thing for me, given how determined I am to read series in the order they were written).

I started the book at 10 p.m. one night, which was a mistake. At 11:30, 12, 12:30 I kept telling myself "just one more chapter." I finally gave up trying to stop myself and just accepted was I was going to read the book until I finished it; at 2 I was done. The combination of an exciting mystery, serviceable prose, lots and lots of well-written, varied female characters, archeology, and a lack of exploitative violence made for a very quick, very enjoyable read. I'm heading back to get whatever other volumes by Gerritsen I can.

As I expected, there was no problem picking up the series in the middle -- there was no over-arching storyline to worry about, and recurring characters got a sentence or two of exposition. There are still a few things I'm curious about, such as the Mephisto Club -- what the hell are they, a secret society? Illuminati wannabes? Lone Gunmen with better looks and more money? And then there's the fact that one of the characters apparently is having an affair with a priest. They're adults and it's consensual so . . . yay? Ah well, the rest of the book more than made up for this.

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