Gerritsen’s ‘Sinner’ engrossing thriller

Editor’s Note: Maine Bound is a column featuring new books that are either written by Maine authors, set in the Pine Tree State or have other local ties.

THE SINNER, by Tess Gerritsen, Ballantine, New York, 2003, 352 pages, hardcover, $24.95.

Camden’s own mistress of the medical thriller is back with another page-turner, one that will keep readers entranced almost until the end.

In “The Sinner,” Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli returns with a nightmare of a case: two nuns from a cloistered order, one old, one young, are found bludgeoned to death in the chapel of their convent.

Across town, another woman’s decomposed body is discovered in an abandoned building, this one without hands, feet or even a face.

What, if anything, is the connection between the two cases? That’s what Rizzoli, aided by “The Queen of the Dead,” coroner Maura Isles, have to determine.

To complicate things, men re-enter the lives of both these workaholics. Maura’s ex-husband Victor, who heads up a global medical organization that aids the poor, wants to get back together with her, in spite of his long absences that doomed their marriage. Gabriel Dean, the FBI agent with whom Rizzoli had a fling in last year’s “The Apprentice,” returns to her life, with a case that intersects with hers, and she’s keeping a secret that she doesn’t want him to know.

Of course, with Gerritsen’s background as an internist, many of the clues are found in Isles’ lab. The solution for a case that starts in Beantown is located in a far different place, and it’s a riveting whodunit along the way, even if the eventual killer does seem to come from a bit out of left field.

“The Sinner” uses an intriguing blend of modern forensics and good old-fashioned shoe leather to reach its thrilling conclusion. Gerristen has come through with another winner.

– Dale McGarrigle

SHADOWS ON THE COAST OF MAINE, by Lea Wait, Scribner’s, New York, 2003, 278 pages, hardcover, $24.

Who knew that antique peddling could be such dangerous work?

In her second “Antique Print Mystery,” Lea Wait brings back Maggie Summers, a dealer who specializes in antique prints, who was also the amateur sleuth in Wait’s Agatha Award-nominated 2002 debut “Shadows at the Fair.”

In “Shadows on the Coast of Maine,” Maggie travels from her home in New Jersey to the small coastal Maine town where her level-headed college roommate, Amy, and her husband, Drew, are renovating

their dream home. The couple, who moved there from New York to start a family, has been haunted by a baby’s voice and mysterious phone calls late at night and a series of accidents.

Then, to make matters worse, the couple’s teen-age helper, a local girl, is found murdered in a field behind their house.

Aided by her would-be paramour Will, a fellow antique dealer and summer resident who’s related to half the town, Maggie sorts through a bundle of suspects with motive, while trying to uncover a few good prints on the side.

Wait’s new novel rings with authenticity. It should, as the Edgecomb-based author has also been an antique-prints dealer for a quarter-century. She lives in the 18th-century house that’s the model for the home featured in her new book. Adoption is one of the novel’s sub-threads, and Wait herself has four adopted daughters.

Wait has written a genteel but involving mystery, with most of the violence happening offstage and a surprising twist at the end. All that, and she’s woven in some fascinating history on antiques as well. What more can any reader want? – Dale McGarrigle