 | |
List Price: $14.99 | | Publisher: Random House Audio
Salesrank: 1284753
Released: May 2, 2006 |
| Our Price: $4.75 |
| Used Price: $0.49 |
|
| Media: Audio CD |
|
Editorial Review:
Boston medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles literally meets her match–and must face a savage serial killer and shattering personal revelations–in the brilliant new novel of suspense by the New York Times bestselling author of The Surgeon and The Sinner.
Dr. Maura Isles makes her living dealing with death. As a pathologist in a major metropolitan city, she has seen more than her share of corpses every day–many of them victims of violent murder. But never before has her blood run cold, and never has the grim expression “dead ringer” rung so terrifyingly true. Because never before has the lifeless body on the medical examiner’s table been her own.
Yet there can be no denying the mind-reeling evidence before her shocked eyes and those of her colleagues, including Detective Jane Rizzoli: the woman found shot to death outside Maura’s home is the mirror image of Maura, down to the most intimate physical nuances. Even more chilling is the discovery that they share the same birth date and blood type. For the stunned Maura, an only child, there can be just one explanation. And when a DNA test confirms that Maura’s mysterious doppelgänger is in fact her twin sister, an already bizarre murder investigation becomes a disturbing and dangerous excursion into a past full of dark secrets.
Searching for answers, Maura is drawn to a seaside town in Maine where other horrifying surprises await. But perhaps more frightening, an unknown murderer is at large on a cross-country killing spree. To stop the massacre and uncover the twisted truth about her own roots, Maura must probe her first living subject: the mother that she never knew . . . an icy and cunning woman who could be responsible for giving Maura life–and who just may have a plan to take it away.
From the Hardcover edition.
Body Double Reviews:
Review of Book On CD 
2008-08-23 - This is a review of the book on CD - unabridged version.
First off, I've been doing a lot of suspense on CD this summer. As some of my other reviews will allude to. But this was certainly one of the better examples.
There are a few themes going on in the book - adoption, birthing, and, of course, murder and mayhem. The two lead characters in the book are lead characters in a series - Dr. Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli - but there isn't enough missing to make the reader feel as if he MUST read the rest of the series. It works well as a standalone.
I found the plot of this to be sufficiently complex, with parts in the past and parts in the present. The solution is natural, with quite a bit of work and not so much luck behind the uncovering. Yet, there is enough intrigue to keep the story going.
The only thing I found off-putting was the constant whininess of Dr. Isles. She's a forensic pathologist, for goodness sakes. I would NOT expect her to be so squeamish about the things that just hover about her throughout the whole book. I won't say anything more, because it might spoil some of the story, but I just found her character too emotive to the point where she stopped being practical for LONG periods of time. It stretched credulity and it annoyed me.
Overall, though, for this kind of book, pretty darn good read. And excellent resolution.
(*)>
Highly Entertaining
2008-08-13 - I love a good, quick read that gives me a good, quick, exciting ride. This did it.
BODY DOUBLE is a thriller/mystery that involves several murders, the possibility of more than one bad guy/gal as perpetrator(s), at least one human "monster" behind bars and perhaps one on the loose.
Add to that believable characters that engage your emotions and you get just the right amount of bang for your buck.
The first 25 pages or so dragged just a little bit.
A real disappointment 
2008-07-12 - Most popular fiction doesn't hold my interest anymore. All too often, the writing is too bland and unimaginative, the plots are standard fare, and the characters are one-dimensional. Tess Gerritsen is one of the few thriller writers whose work I've enjoyed in recent years. Her writing isn't that special, but she does have real storytelling skill, so that her books have always kept me reading.
The first two books featuring Jane Rizzoli, THE SURGEON and THE APPRENTICE, were truly suspenseful. Rizzoli is close to being a believable character, with the kind of problems that most of us can identify with. In the third novel, THE SINNER, Rizzoli moved to backup status, to make way for the pathologist Dr. Maura Isles. Unfortunately, Isles has yet to become a realistic character. She is more of a placeholder, an inert viewpoint character who exists simply as a device to hang the plot on.
And that's a real problem with BODY DOUBLE. The story has much of the gruesome fascination of THE SURGEON and THE APPRENTICE, and yet it lacks tension. It's fitfully suspenseful, but I got through 150 pages and felt like I was waiting for the story to get started. Over halfway through the book, I still felt that way, and came close to setting it aside for something more interesting.
I finally started skimming, and it finally got interesting again towards the end. However, most of the mystery is unraveled about 50 pages before the story finally concludes, so the rest of the book feels like a long epilogue.
For me, this was just a badly built plot, one that fails to build tension and only delivers sporadically. Far from being the kind of riveting read I was expecting, BODY DOUBLE was a book which thrilled me mostly when I was done with it, and could read something else.
I'll probably try the next book in the series (since I already bought it) but I'm surprised at how highly rated this one is. I hope VANISH sees a return to form.
Ditto 
2008-07-07 - This series of books by Tess Gerritsen is absolutely a page-turner. I couldn't read fast enough. This series was purchased by my niece who is stationed with the Army in Afghanistan. She loves to read mysteries, and I know this series will keep what little spare time she has occupied.
Very Good!
2008-06-23 - This is the fourth book in the Patholigist Dr. Maura Isles/Detective Jane Rizzoli series, and stands up pretty well in comparision with the other three novels.
In this one, Dr. Maura Isles has to go deep into her past, and find hidden, shocking truths, about her family in order to solve a modern day crime.
As always, the characters of Maura Isles and Jane Rizzoli are engaging, and the plot in this book had quite a few twists in it, too. There was frequently something new being discovered, or an event happening, in the storyline, that would make you want to read on further.
