RIZZOLI & ISLES

The snoop is the star as Rizzoli and Isles make their 13th appearance together.

A hit-and-run driver injures young Amy Antrim in downtown Boston, and Sofia Suarez, a middle-aged critical care nurse, is bludgeoned to death. Amy’s father, a doctor, had worked with Sofia, but otherwise the two events appear unconnected. Boston PD Homicide detectives Jane Rizzoli and her partner, Barry Frost, investigate the murder, and medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles dissects poor Sofia’s corpse for clues. And a teenage girl goes missing for the fourth time. Will she return on her own, or has something horrible happened to her? As Jane tries to work, she's pestered by her mom, Angela, the neighborhood snoop. Angela knows everybody’s business and is friends with most of her neighbors. Her mantra is, “if you see something, say something,” and she sees a new couple that has moved in close by, pulled the shades down, even installed bars on the windows. She wants her daughter to investigate, but Jane is busy dealing with real crime. Yet something fishy is going on over there, perhaps a woman being held captive and abused. The characters are certainly colorful. Isles escapes her daily view of death by playing piano and doing it to perfection. A colleague is surprised that she “chose cadavers over Chopin.” Jane is miffed that her good friend Maura had never mentioned her musical pastime, but music “was her safe space, where death did not intrude.” Meanwhile, a self-proclaimed former SEAL pumps iron in his front window, the better to impress the women. Angela gossips with her Scrabble friends and mildly resents the snotty wordsmith who has a master’s in English. For her part, Angela has “a life degree in motherhood.” She knows that the way to get men to help her is to offer them zucchini bread, and she knows how to tactfully fend off a neighbor’s unwelcome advances. Gerritsen combines her knowledge of medicine and police procedure with an intricate plot, clever twists, and strong women.

Solid entertainment by one of the best.