This was one of those books that I had finished in a day because it was hard to put down. You might take a bookmark, place it between the pages you last read, and keep it somewhere, like a bookcase or a table, but you would still have it in your mind, you’d still think of what was going on. That was what had happened to me last night. I just couldn’t stop reading it. I suppose I should have taken to heart the reviews written on the first few pages of my paperback copy.

One of the things that really attract me to buying certain books is the presence of serial killers in it. Hey, I’m a Psychology student - give me a break. And with The Surgeon’s plot circling around the hunt for a serial killer who goes after women, the book’s a must-have, even if I do have a few pet peeves about Gerritsen’s writing.

I still bought the book, even if I was expecting that it would be something like her other novels that I have - The Mephisto Club, which I bought first, and The Sinner - in that it would be so exciting, so intriguing at first but when you get to the end, the excitement had already dissipated because the plot got a bit long-winded. An example with The Mephisto Club, it was all very intriguing with all the symbology and whatnot but I feel that Gerritsen had focused more on it, leaving parts of the plot and the story stale. The Surgeon, on the other hand, did not disappoint and the entire story up to the ending was exhilarating.

I would like to make a haphazard guess as to what made this novel very different from the other two and it is most likely because of how dynamic this is. There was a balance between the fast-paced, movement-filled scenes and the quiet, sort of stationary ones. And the dramatic ER scenes contributed a lot as well and when I say a lot, I mean a lot. Usually, these ER scenes would’ve drowned the story, especially if they were included to just impress the reader but in this case, the scenes were just brilliant.  Even if I could barely understand many of the medical terms/procedures mentioned, I could imagine the intensity and the energy of the act of saving a man’s life inside the hospital. Well, not just imagine but feel as if you were actually there.

The characters were well-defined, believable. They could actually be real human beings. From Rizzoli to Zucker, each and every single one of the character’s actions, quips reveal the person that they were. They weren’t like characters who were given one attribute or stereotyped as such and the reader was expected to just leave it at that when countless actions and words from the characters suggest otherwise.

All in all, The Surgeon is the best Gerritsen novel that I’ve read so far and it has given me enough reason to still buy and read her books. This is one of those stories that keep you guessing until the end and that what happens is usually the least that you’ve expected. If you’re looking for a thrill, check this one out.