Vanish by Tess Gerritsen

Title: Vanish
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Series: #5 in the Rizzoli/Isles series
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Publisher: Ballantine Books (August 23, 2005)
Source: Library Find
Rating: ☕☕☕1/2

Synopsis: A nameless, beautiful woman appears to be just another corpse in the morgue. An apparent suicide, she lies on a gurney, awaiting the dissecting scalpel of medical examiner Maura Isles. But when Maura unzips the body bag and looks down at the body, she gets the fright of her life. The corpse opens its eyes.

Very much alive, the woman is rushed to the hospital, where with shockingly cool precision, she murders a security guard and seizes hostages . . . one of them a pregnant patient, Jane Rizzoli.

Who is this violent, desperate soul, and what does she want? As the tense hours tick by, Maura joins forces with Jane s husband, FBI agent Gabriel Dean, to track down the mysterious killer s identity. When federal agents suddenly appear on the scene, Maura and Gabriel realize that they are dealing with a case that goes far deeper than just an ordinary hostage crisis.

Only Jane, trapped with the armed madwoman, holds the key to the mystery. And only she can solve it if she survives the night.

My Thoughts: This was the second time I've read this book and my opinion is the same as it was so many years ago. A good installment to the series but not my favorite.

The Good: The suspense was so realistic with Gabriel's emotional journey while Jane was trapped in the hospital and the final scene where Jane thought she and her baby were going to die. I liked both Maura's and Jane's input into this book where in the past books the focus was on one woman or the other. In this one it felt a little more balanced between the two of them as they both were hostages at one point or another by Olena and they had input into the investigation in their own way.

The Bad: While I think this book was truly a good installment into this series it just didn't resonate with me. I think there were too many conspiracy theory things going on. It was hard to take some things serious when it appeared the conspiracy theorists were just whackadoos and pointing their fingers at everyone in authority. I also took issue with Maura's opinion that one of the secondary characters was really attractive. I am so glad nothing came of it because it seems that in every book Maura seems to have another man she's attracted to. Come on Maura!

In a Nutshell: I'm happy to have been re-reading these first few books in the series and I'm looking forward to my re-read of the 6th book as well.