Title: I Know a Secret
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Series: Rizzoli & Isles
Source: Library
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Trigger Warning: Talk of child abuse, children dying, can be quite graphic. This mystery is not cozy folx.
Summary: The crime scene is unlike any that Detective Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles have ever before encountered. The woman lies in apparently peaceful repose on her bed, and Maura finds no apparent cause of death, but there is no doubt the woman is indeed dead. The victim’s eyes have been removed and placed in the palm of her hand, a gesture that echoes the terrifying films she produces. Is a crazed movie fan reenacting scenes from those disturbing films?

When another victim is found, again with no apparent cause of death, again with a grotesquely staged crime scene, Jane and Maura realize the killer has widened his circle of targets. He’s chosen one particular woman for his next victim, and she knows he’s coming for her next. She’s the only one who can help Jane and Maura catch the killer.

But she knows a secret. And it’s a secret she’ll never tell.

I have missed Maura and Jane something fierce, and Gabriel (though his appearances are few and far between in this book.) I also love Angela Rizzoli, who deserves way better than she’s treated in this book.

That being said, my mysteries lately are a little more cozy than anything else. And therefore, I found myself both diving into this book and mystery eagerly, but also tossing my tablet away when I needed a moment to recover from the horror visited upon me when it came to the description of the crime scenes, and autopsy.

And the pure damn evil. Sorry, I digress but this book spooked me as much as it drew me in.

I thought I had this all figured out, I really did, and then I didn’t have it figured out but I still did. So this book will definitely keep you guessing, and does offer a degree of familiarity if you too were involved in the millennium era crime show/CSI/everything NCIS/Rizzoli & Isles (the TV) show fandom. Even when it’s creepy it’s also welcoming? At least to people like me who wish justice was a little more clean cut, and that the good guys, who would actually be good guys, if a little rough around the edges would always win, but maybe lose a little at the same time.

This book will make you flinch, and make you wonder about how horrible the world can be, and if you should maybe avoid forests at all times.

I will probably pick up the next book, because who am I kidding? I’m in this for the long haul.