The Keepsake by Tess Gerritsen

"Before going to bed, she took a last peek out the front window. The street was quiet, so perhaps tonight was not the night. Perhaps she had been granted another reprieve. If so, it was only a temporary one, much like waking up every morning in a death row cell, not knowing if today was the day they would walk you to the scaffold. The uncertainty of one's appointment with doom is what can drive a condemned prisoner insane."
                             -from the novel

I have been an avid fan of the TV series "Rizzoli and Isles" since it began in 2010. Recently I actually paid attention to the credit I'd long ignored: "based on a series of novels by Tess Gerritsen." I decided on my next trip to the library I would check the shelves. I found several by the author, including this one. The Keepsake was a real page turner, in fact, for the first time in quite a while I was up an hour past my bedtime to finish it!

In this one Detective Jane Rizzoli is involved in a case that is stranger than strange! Boston PD is looking for a serial killer of women who seems fixated on Egyptology, to the point of preserving the corpses as mummies, tsantsas (shrunken heads) and bog bodies. The perp earns the nickname "the archaeology killer" as more and more of his "keepsakes" are found. Josephine Pulcillo is an archaeologist working in the Crispen Museum in Boston when the first victim is discovered there. It becomes clear very quickly that she has a secret past and before long the reader assumes she is a potential victim.

As the plot thickens there are a number of surprises along with fast-paced action, making this a quick, exciting read! I rate it a 5.

I couldn't help but compare the novel to the TV series. In the book Jane is married and has a young daughter while she and Maura Isles are both single in the show. Jane's partner, Detective Barry Frost. is married in the novel, as well, but I don't remember the mention of a wife on the show. The author describes Frost with blond hair but he was Afro-American on TV. There were some other differences but none quite as striking as these. I do love the humorous repartee among the TV characters but in the novel there was much less of that.

The word "confabulations" was a new one to me. I looked it up: a spontaneous production of false memories caused by brain trauma.

I found the mention of the Windover Burial Site (p.152) especially interesting because the Orange County Regional History Center where I am a docent has an exhibit and I have heard an archaeologist speak about that ancient burial site where bodies were preserved in a bog. The story also mentions a trash midden which I was familiar with since the term relates to native Floridians (ei. shell middens).

I was surprised when I realized that the final chapter was written in first person. Interestingly, the first chapter was, too, while the rest of the book is in third person. Read it and you will see why.

I will definitely read others in the Rizzoli and Isles series by this author. Ice Cold is in the queue.