The Bone Garden: A Novel
by Tess Gerritsen
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.74 You Save: $4.25 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Bone Garden: A Novel
Book Review: A trip outside her normal genre, and a very good one
Summary: 5 Stars
Tess Gerritsen generally stays in the modern world when she writes, and does so very well indeed. This time, however, she journeys into the past, into a time when women were viewed as barely human and although doctors were considered to dwell in America's middle or upper classes socially, medical students were often suspected of robbing graves or committing pagan rituals with bodies of the dead in order to learn their profession. They were generally regarded with dislike, if not outright loathing. Medicine itself was stuck in the past, still adhering to the humoristic principles of disease established by Hippocrates of Ancient Greece and expounded on by the Rome's 2nd century physician Claudius Galen. To doctors of that era, all illness was the result of an imbalance in the body's four ''humors'', and the only way to bring them back into balance and thus provide a cure, was to bleed the patient. The germ theory of disease was a good 50 years in the future and the thought of illnesses being transmitted by lack of cleanliness or via a physician's germ-ridden hands was scoffed at.
Monitored by a devoted pair of modern history buffs, we are transferred into this world via a series of letters written by O.W.Holmes in which he has recorded a heart-rending story redolent of a true Shakespearean tragedy. The story begins in the present but within a few dozen pages one finds oneself conveyed into a squalid, corrupt American past wherein an unfortunate young woman, an Irish immigrant, who watches her sister die in childbirth and having taken her niece from that deathbed, finds herself alone in an unbelievably filthy, decaying world of the poor, harassed by a vicious, grasping brother-in-law and hounded by a stupid and callous member of the local watch who has a virulent hatred of Irish immigrants and whose detecting abilities exist only in his own venomous fantasy.
As if this were not enough to chill anyone's imagination, into this world steps a death-dealing monstrosity who appears to those who've seen it as a dragon-winged, white-faced abomination that seems to kill without reason or mercy, but with the skill of a surgeon - or a medical student.
I do not wish to present the reader of this review with any more information. This is a story that deserves to be read with care. Tess Gerritsen has written with a style and depth of feeling that people of all ages should experience, if for no other reason than to become aware of how fortunate we are to be living today, rather than in the America of the early 19th century.
The ''Good Old Days'' were not really very good after all....
Book Review: Novel lacks suspense and thrills Gerritsen usually has, but still interesting
Summary: 3 Stars
Bone Garden by Tess Gerrittsen has an interesting premise. Julia Hamill, recently divorced, has recently purchased an old house. While digging around in the yard trying to plant a garden, she comes across some old bones. Intrigued by who the house belongs too, she looks into the previous owner and discovers that the previous owner had kept 30 boxes of old documents and newspaper clippings. Julia visits Henry, a cousin of the deceased homeowner, and together they research the history of the family.
That's the set up. Most of the novel takes place in the 1830s and is about Rose Connelly. Rose is an immigrant who just watched her sister die after giving birth. Rose takes the baby and vows to never let anything happen to the baby. Rose is being pursued by Eben Tate, her brother-in-law. Rose has other problems. She was a witness to a murder by the West-Side Reaper. As more nurses are killed by the Reaper, Rose fears that her neice is at the center of it all. Rose, poor and homeless, struggles to find a home for the baby while finding the truth about the reaper, and other sins that high society might be hiding.
Norris Marshall is a farm boy going to medical school in Boston. Marshall is also witness to the murders in which two school nurses are killed. Marshall struggles to fit in with the upper class students, but does find a friend in Oliver Wendell Holmes.
I've read Body Double and Vanish by Gerritsen, and this book is nothing like those. Despite what the book summary says, all of the suspense and action takes place in the 1830s. And there isn't much suspense. There are too many relationships and character brooding going on for a suspense novel. If you are prepared for this, then you should enjoy the historical aspects of the novel. Gerritsen gets a lot of the 1830s time period right, but she doesn't completely nail it. I always got the impression that the characters in the novel were the only people living in Boston. Still, it kept me listening on the audio book I had. Fans of Gerritsen should enjoy this thriller, even though it doesn't include her main characters Iles or Risotti (I think those are their names). This isn't one of her best, but is still a good story.
Book Review: A provocative thriller
Summary: 4 Stars
The French gave us the word "plot" through "plait" or weaving together. The reader then unravels the threads of the plot in the process of reading. What makes Tess Gerritsen's "The Bone Garden" stand out as a thriller is the thick plait, one with many strands. Oh, the fun of the unraveling!
One of the minor subplots (or strands) which has actual medical and historical import of the highest degree is Oliver Wendell Holmes's contribution to medicine. Gerritsen weaves this contribution into her plot through the story of Aurnia Connolly who dies of childbed fever, or puerperal fever.
The two major plots are interwoven through alternating chapters. Julia Hammil impulsively buys a 130-year-old house situated near Boston, where she almost immediately finds an old skeleton. It is linked to 80-something Henry Page of Maine who invites her to go through old boxes of the previous owner to look for clues of the skeleton's identity. His family had built the house decades earlier. Everything is linked and believably so.
The other major plot revolves around Rose Connolly, an Irish immigrant, and newborn niece, and Norris Marshall, an impoverished medical student. How they meet and become friends is part of the periphery of the West End murders committed by a ghoul, which each actually sees.
The story of the medical students and how cadavers are obtained is another strand involving some unsavory and some upright characters. Gerritsen is like Dickens in quickly filling details of her characters. Another strand woven into the plot is the status of women in the 1830's, the time of the medical story.
Still another is the loneliness inherent in some occupations, in some characters, in some hearts and how some people can love and others cannot.
Tess Gerritsen has been one of my favorite writers since her first novel, "Harvest," was published. Her early books were filled with lush prose, beautiful phrases, sentences, entire passages. I missed that in this book. However, keeping all those strands tight and making them hold together was an amazing feat of writerly talent.
Book Review: Confusing, verbose, not up to her standards
Summary: 3 Stars
This book was a real disappointment to me. It was billed as a story over two time periods, today and the past, and while it technically was that, the present storyline was just a few pages and the ending of that part made very little sense to me (can't say more without giving it away, but I reread the last chapter and I'm still mystified - I hate that in a book!).
I don't want to give story away, but it seemed to me that in both the ending of the book and some key exciting parts near the end of the 'past' story, the author was far too brief when most of the other bits of the story were verbose. I mean, really, Gerritsen, almost 500 pages and the key elements, key passages, get a page or two and you go on and on and on about the filth and cold and poverty of 1830...
The 'bad guy' was a bit unbelievable for the time frame and just a bit over the top on motive, I sure didn't believe THAT PERSON would do what was done... Pretty far fetched.
Also, if you're thinking it has anything to do with Maura Isles, the medical examiner from the Rizzoli books, forget it, she's got a page in there, if that.
That all said, I read the entire book, it was captivating. It absolutely gave you some real sense of medicine in the early 19th century in America.
Very gritty. You really felt for how the poor lived in that time period, as well, and it made me appreciate our modern conveniences and modern medical standards, that's for sure.
I would highly recommend The Keepsake by Gerritsen or Sinner, or Vanish or Body Double, all Rizzoli books. I really loved those.
Book Review: An Exquisite Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
A perfect blend of old and new with a complex combination of love, hope, despair and courage. Julia Hamill, recently divorced and angry purchases the former residence of Hilda Chamblett. The old house is in extreme need of repair, similar to Julia's own life and she welcomes the house as well as the stories it has to tell. While trying to grow a garden in the rough soil, she comes across the skull of a woman whom was murdered years ago. The bones lead Julia to 89-year-old family Historian Henry Page, uncle to her newly discovered and attractive neighbor Tom Page. As Julia meets with Henry and devours the collection of newspaper articles and letters, she is brought back to Boston in the 1830's, and the story of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris Marshall, and Rose Connolly. The tragedy, heartbreak, and mystery surrounding the story of the West End Reaper, flow seemly across the pages in rich and vivid detail making connections to the bones from Julia's own backyard. The storyline expertly weaves between the past and the present, filling the pages with such detail the reader becomes emotionally attached to the characters and their lives. The similarities in life that stretch across time are conveyed so well that each person will find appeal within The Bone Garden. Tess Gerritsen uses the power of her words and the story she describes to captivate her readers and give them all their monies worth. A worthy read deserving of the highest praises. Valerie Jones mrsvaljones@netzero.net