Books Read: Tess Gerritsen - Last to Die

Three children, strangers to each other, are brought together by seemingly motiveless and extreme acts of violence. Orphaned and alone, they are taken in as students at Evensong, a boarding school for emotionally traumatized children in the remote Maine wilderness.

A PLACE OF SAFETY?
Forensic pathologist Maura Isles already has a connection with the school - Julian 'Rat' Perkins, the 16-year-old boy she met during a previous case, is now living there. But she suspects that the Evensong founders may be using the school for their own agenda. And her concerns grow when Detective Jane Rizzoli is asked to investigate yet another attempt on the life of one of the orphans at the school . . .

OR A PLACE OF DANGER?
What both Jane and Maura soon discover is that even a school protected by locked gates and acres of forest cannot shut out a gathering threat. When three blood-spattered twig dolls are found hanging from a tree, they wonder if the threat comes from outside the school . . . or from within.

One of the things I love about reading is variety, as they say it's the spice of life, so I like to mix up the type of books I read,  so when I saw on NetGalley that they were looking for reviewers for Last to Die I applied and was accepted.

This is the latest offering in Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles series which sees them investigating a family homicide where one child, Teddy, has survived the horrific crime which has wiped out his foster family.  But for Teddy this is not the first tragedy that he has survived in his young life as he was also the sole survivor of a previous incident in which his biological family all died.

When Maura goes to visit Julian 'Rat' Perkins, a boy she'd met on a previous case, at his boarding school Evensong she meets fellow students Claire and Will and alarm bells start to ring when she discovers that, like Teddy, they have also both survived two tragedies that have claimed the lives of their biological and foster families.

She contacts Jane Rizzoli and between them they start to investigate if there is any connection between Teddy, Claire and Will's families and when sinister things start to happen it's apparent that they are on the right track.  Can they find the killer before it's too late?

This is actually the first Tess Gerritsen book I've read, even though it's number 10 in her Rizzoli and Isles series, so I've actually got a lot of catching up to do!  It might have helped me to understand the back stories a little between Maura, Anthony Sansone and Julian, if I'd read Mephisto Club and The Killing Place first but I was able to follow the story without having done so.

If you've read her previous books then I'm sure that you'll enjoy reading this one too.