For the past seven years, prolific author Tess Gerritsen has utilized the duo of Boston Police Detective Jane Rizzoli and Medical Examiner Maura Isles to present crime novels highlighting Gerritsen’s medical background with fascinating, off-the-beaten-path plot hooks. While never partners in the traditional sense, Rizzoli and Isles can’t help but cross paths as they examine the various evidence and leads on the trail of murderous perpetrators.
THE KEEPSAKE, the latest in the series, is a fine example of everything great about these novels and Gerritsen herself. It is never less than entertaining and suspenseful, with an unusual hook that takes readers into areas seldom explored. And while it’s not completely successful in every endeavor, it’s not for lack of trying.
Boston’s Crispen Museum has unearthed a perfectly preserved mummy from the vast holdings in its basement. And it quickly becomes a full-blown media event. That’s good news for the financially struggling museum, as the publicity is bound to result in more paying visitors. So camera crews and reporters gather for the unveiling of “Madame X,” the media’s name for the mummy.
Isles is invited to take part in the official examination of the mummy, along with museum staff archaeologist Josephine Pulcillo, a stunningly beautiful young women with a speciality in Egyptology. But as the mummy undergoes a high-tech scan, the examiners are stunned to discover that what they thought was an ancient relic is instead a fairly recent female body with a 22-caliber bullet lodged in its leg. Rizzoli, her partner and other Boston PD officers are called in as the archaeological examination suddenly becomes a murder investigation.
While the identity of the real Madame X is conducted, the search for clues leads to the museum’s basement and its hundreds of unpacked artifacts. A hidden storage section behind a wall is discovered, and inside is a gruesome collection of shrunken heads. Bits of old newspaper and an odd, engraved souvenir coin are found along with the shrunken heads. And while these items hold little meaning to the detectives, they immediately unsettle Pulcillo. The killer might know her and the secrets she’s been keeping for years.
But when another mummified body is found hidden in the trunk of her car, there is no longer any doubt that the now named “Archaeology Killer” is stalking Pulcillo and knows the sad truth about her and her family. Rizzoli and Isles begin to unravel Pulcillo’s past as they continue their investigation and uncover more bodies along the way.
It’s to Gerritsen’s great and continuing credit that she injects so much medical and historical information into the story without it all sounding like a classroom lecture. So along the way we learn much about the traditional Egyptian method of mummification and the many reasons why mummies have fascinated us throughout history. The same goes for how shrunken heads are made and various other ways of preserving dead bodies.
We also see both Rizzoli and Isles as they struggle with the challenges of their personal lives. Rizzoli, a new mother, feels the threat of violence inherent in her job in new and disturbing ways as she tries to protect her infant daughter. Meanwhile, Isles continues her clandestine love affair with a local priest, and experiences painful emptiness as she realizes that her lover is torn between his devotion to her and his church.
But when the secrets of Pulcillo’s past are explored, things get sadly problematic. Gerritsen constantly goes against expectations as the truth about the young archaeologist is revealed. Well and good. But as a result, the story becomes so complex and involved that it takes a huge chunk of spoken exposition in the later chapters to explain and make sense out of it all. Even more unfortunate is the series of tense but too similar stand-offs that eventually bring the novel to its somewhat clumsy conclusion.
Not surprisingly, you find yourself wishing these imperfections didn’t exist. That’s because everything leading to them is so good and so much fun. But it’s these majority of moments — where Gerritsen shows her true talents – that make THE KEEPSAKE easily worth the effort.
And if you remember being a kid and running excitedly to the mummy display at your hometown museum, take comfort in knowing that you are definitely not alone. —Alan Cranis
Related posts:
- Q&A with FROZEN’s Jay Bonansinga
- The Book of the Dead
- The Lizard’s Bite
- Dead Head
- The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense
