Circles of death intersect

Bizarre coincidences link murders for Rizzoli & Isles

By Bill Tolbert

The Free Lance-Star

BOSTON police detective  Jane Rizzoli is called  into a case in which a family of five in the exclusive Beacon Hill area of the city is slain.  The lone survivor is a teen-age foster child who escaped the carnage and fled to a neighbor’s home.

In “Last to Die” by Tess Gerritsen, the story takes a bizarre turn when authorities find out  the boy previously escaped death a few years before, when his parents and a sister were slain.

Rizzoli takes the teen to a compound in the wilds of Maine, home to an exclusive boarding school, where he can be safe. Dr. Maura Isles, a Boston medical examiner who frequently works cases with Rizzoli, has a connection with the school through a student there. Rizzoli and Isles learn that the youngster who survived the bloodshed in Boston is one of three students whose families, and later relatives or guardians, were slain. Now the detective and medical examiner must try to determine if the three cases are connected and who committed the heinous crimes.

And, equally important, they must keep the students at the school safe from a killer who remains at large. Many TV fans are familiar with the characters Rizzoli and Isles through the television series, and how the pair regularly join forces to solve crimes.

Folks won’t be disappointed with this version in print.

Bill Tolbert is a city editor  with The Free Lance–Star.

LAST TO DIE

By Tess Gerritson

(Ballantine, $27,  352 pp.)

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