Mephisto Club

by: Tess Gerritsen

Published by: Ballantine Books

Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann

Gerritsen has another great thriller, with Detective Jane Rizzoli and Medical Examiner Dr. Maura Isles returning to engage the reader in a fascinating tale.

The story opens in Boston, when Dr. Isles is called just after the end of Christmas Eve mass to the scene of a horrific crime: a young woman has been dismembered in her home, with Latin words written on the walls in red ocher, plus black candles and blood spatters.

Someone at the house had called psychiatrist Dr. Joyce O'Donnell, not a favorite of the police as she often testified for the defense, and specialized in serial killers. Detective Jane Rizzoli is skeptical of the religious details of this crime--the evidence pointing to an ancient malevolence. Dr. O'Donnell is a member of the Mephisto Club, a group of brilliant academicians who claim they study evil in order to end it.

The next corpse is a young detective found dead outside the home of Mephisto Club leader Antonio Sansone. Clues eventually lead them to a home in rural New York, where they find the body of another young woman who had been killed weeks earlier.

The evidence here points to Lily Saul and her cousin Dominic. Dominic came to live in this house in New York one summer after his father died--and he managed to kill 11-year-old Teddy, and his mother and father--until his sister Lily ended it, or thought she did.

The Mephisto Club tracks down Lily, hiding out from evil in Italy. Once they find her and all return to Boston, the Club takes her under their wing, with astounding consequences. Dr. Isles and Detective Rizzoli are both present for the shocking conclusion of the story.

Gerritsen's medical and anthropological background shows here, as does her extensive research on ancient texts: the apocryphal Book of Enoch and Book of Jubilee.

Armchair Interviews says: Another great thriller!