Vanish
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Vanish (2005) Tess Gerritsen
Two things about Vanish. First, it was good–a well written, well paced story. Second, I didn’t like it. No, those two things are not mutually exclusive. I can recognize that something is good without enjoying it, and that was my issue with Vanish. My second major issue is ‘What the hell is up with that cover?’ Seriously. Talk about having absolutely no bearing on the story. Jeesh.
Maura Isles, Boston medical examiner, discovers that a woman in a body bag at the morgue isn’t dead yet. Jane Rizzoli is way past her due date, and ready to have her baby. Unfortunately for her, she ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and between the two of them, Jane and Maura uncover a nasty conspiracy that places them–and others–in jeopardy.
So what did I like? The mystery was very well done. There were many twists and turns, and I never was quite sure what was happening until it had happened. I also liked the surprise twists.
However, the story was extremely dark and extremely depressing. Yeah, there was a baby, but it’s difficult to take a book about slavery in the 21st century and make it anything other than horrifying.
As good as the mystery was, and as much as I couldn’t put the book down, I just wanted it to be over so I could stop reading about all the awful things that happened to Mila.
One other small issue. I got it that Ballentree was suppose to be Halliburton. Really I did. That seemed a bit heavy handed at times. Perhaps it was needed, but that point just felt a little overdone.
If you’ve read a previous Tess Gerritsen novel, you’ve probably already read Vanish. If you haven’t, you should be able to read Vanish without having read any previous books in the series.
Rating: 6/10
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I just finished an earlier Rizzoli & Isles book by Gerritsen (Sinner). The cover illustration was likewise completely off. Well, it did portray the corpse of a woman, but clearly not that of either woman found murdered in the course of the book, for some pretty specific and distinct reasons. What’s up with cover illustrations? My understanding is that an author may have absolutely no control over a cover. Do the book’s marketers think readers are so stupid as to not notice when illustrations are so clearly unrelated to the content? I’m acquiring the rest of the books in this series; I’m curious as to whether this pattern continues with them.
August 30, 2011 @ 11:24 PM
Authors rarely have cover control–lots of SF/F authors can get really upset about ridiculous covers. I just don’t get the soft pr0n feel–I mean, why would you want someone to pick up your book thinking it was a boinking book and then get a murder mystery? WTF?
August 31, 2011 @ 6:44 AM
Exactly my thinking, too. And there was a sexual aspect to the cover of Sinner as well, at least for the hardcover edition I have (which isn’t anything like either the US or UK paperback cover, although one of them is pretty sexualized, and the other has a religious tone). The book deals with two murders, one of a young nun found in full habit, the other of a young woman whose body had parts removed after death. On the cover, there is a completely naked young woman in partial shadow, lying what looks like a brick street or sidewalk (not like either murder scene), all parts intact. That doesn’t make any sense.
September 2, 2011 @ 9:40 PM
Actually, I think it’s worse even than not making sense. It made me think there must be another murder later in the book, or at least someone left naked and unconscious. Except that I know covers don’t always match content. If you didn’t know that, you’d probably feel misled about the entire drama of the novel, which would piss me off. I don’t understand why authors don’t raise more of a stink about this.
My bartender friend at Kingsgate ran into some of the same issues when trying to get his (first of a planned series) little book published. He ended up publishing it himself.
September 2, 2011 @ 9:44 PM