If there’s one thing that Tess Gerritsen’s Body Double categorically proves, it’s that there are few writers (on either side of the Atlantic) as consistent as her in turning out pungent and atmospheric thrillers, each as finely honed as the last. The Surgeon, with its ritualistic serial killer apparently returning from the dead to menace the surgeon he blamed for his death, marked out Gerritsen’s unsettling territory with immense assurance: here was a writer for whom there were few taboos when it came to disturbing the reader. Similarly, The Apprentice gleaned considerable acclaim for its chilling portrait of a killer utilising his medical knowledge in unspeakable fashion. Body Double has all the characteristic Gerritsen imagination and innovation (despite a title that has seen service a little too often); here, Detective Jane Rizzoli has the feeling that she is gazing at her doppelganger when she looks at the body of Boston pathologist Dr Maura Isles stretched out on the slab that was her own work surface. Maura Isles has Jane’s physical appearance, birth date, and even blood type. And when tests reveal that the women are twin sisters, Jane is plunged into a dangerous mystery, travelling to Maine where she must investigate the identity of a mother she never knew. And, all the while, a savage murderer is indulging in nationwide slaughter. Gerritsen has created some controversy with her readiness to gaze into the darker recesses of human psychopathology, and this book (like its predecessors) is not for the squeamish. But those seeking powerful and trenchant crime writing need not hesitate. Jane Rizzoli, too, is a strongly characterised protagonist. --Barry Forshaw