Vanish (Rizzoli and Isles thriller) by Tess Gerritsen

Opening line in the book:  My name is Mila, and this is my journey.

Synopsis:  A blessed event becomes a nightmare for pregnant homicide detective Jane Rizzoli when she finds herself on the wrong side of a hostage crisis.  
The nameless and beautiful woman appears to be just another corpse in the morgue.  But when medical examiner Maura Isles unzips the body bag and looks down at what she's been told is an apparent suicide, she gets the fright of her life.
The corpse opens its eyes.
Now very much alive, the 'dead' woman is rushed to the hospital where her next action shocks everyone.  With cool precision, she murders a security guard and seizes hostages.  One of those hostages is a very pregnant patient: Jane Rizzoli.
Who is this mysterious hostage-taker, and what does she want?  As tense hours tick by, Maura joins forces with Jane's husband, FBI agent Gabriel Dean, to track down the nameless woman's identity.
But only Jane, trapped with the armed madwoman, holds the key to the mystery.  And only she can solve it - if she survives the night.

In this day and age, it is hard to know who to trust.  The dividing line between fear and paranoia, between truth and delusion is very thin.  And that is what this fifth book is about.  The core of this book is about undocumented aliens in the US or to be precise, about some fifty thousand unaccounted-for women who are being abused and exploited by clients who only care about one thing.  Some of the questions posed are "How do they get into a country?", "Who brought them in?", "Which routes did they take to penetrate country borders?"  I am going to take a quote from the book which pretty much sums up the gist of this Rizzoli and Isles thriller.

Ever since September eleventh, Americans just assume that we've tightened our borders, that we've clamped down on illegal immigrants.  That's hardly the case.  The illicit traffic moving between Mexico and the US is still as busy as a major highway.  We have miles and miles of unmonitored coastline.  A Canadian border that's scarcely patrolled.  And the worst human smugglers know all the routes, all the tricks.  Shipping in girls is easy.  And once they've brought them here, it's not hard to put them to work...These are slaves, serving against their will.  Thousands of girls brought into the US where they simply vanish...And few people know they even exist.  

Another quote taken from the book about the movie Pretty Woman which has apparently sent out the wrong message to impressionable young girls:

Do you know what the worst export our country ever sent to Russia was?...That movie, Pretty Woman.  You know, the one with Julia Roberts.  The prostitute as Cinderella.  In Russia, they love that movie.  The girls see it and think:  If I go to America, I'll meet Richard Gere.  He'll marry me, I'll be rich, and I'll live happily ever after.  So even if the girl's suspicious, even if she's not sure a legitimate job's really waiting for her in the US, she figures she'll only have to turn a few tricks, and then Richard Gere will show up to rescue her...She thinks she's coming to live the life of Pretty Woman.  Instead, she's bought and sold like a side of beef.  

Now for the good news:  I love the part where Rizzoli becomes a mother to baby Regina and how she is not coping very well with the new addition to her family and needs her mother to help out.  Her relationship with her husband, Gabriel, is admirable and loving.  Like any new mother, Rizzoli is torn between going back to her job which she loves and being there for her daughter.  Like any new mother, she eventually learns that a baby's demands are very unpredictable and nothing ever goes like clockwork.  This family angle balances the gory contents that cover most of the book very well.  Unfortunately, for Isles, she is still very much unlucky in the love department.  Even though there are situations where possible romance could develop between her and the men she met in the course of her job but somehow, they did not work out.  There is hope yet. 

By this time, I can safely say that I am pretty much used to Gerritsen's writing style and am determined to finish off this series.  I would recommend this book for its dialogue and multi-layered plot.  The Rizzoli and Isles thriller is an exceptional 'women power' series and so is the author!

The idea behind the book.  Watch this video taken from youtube:



Rating:  3/5 (Enjoyed it)