Gerritsen, Tess – THE MEPHISTO CLUB

[LJ Roberts]

THE MEPHISTO CLUB (Police Proc-NY-Cont) – G
Gerritsen, Tess – 6^th in series
Ballantine Books, 2006- Hardcover

Detective Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles are faced with the question of whether there is true evil. They are called to a gruesome murder scene where a woman has been dismembered except that one of the body parts apparently belongs to someone else. As more victims are found, so are signs indicating the murders to be ritualistic. Members of the Mephisto Club become involved with their objective being to provide that Nephilim, demons descended from a mating of fallen angels and humans, exist among us.

I normally love Ms. Gerritsen’s books, but this one less so than some. I always find interesting the question of whether there is true evil. So it wasn’t so much the story or plot with which I had a problem. Mainly, it was the structure that bothered me. I found the story slower to start; I really didn’t care about the characters other than the protagonists. There was the assumption that the reader had read previous books in this series, so character development was definitely light. There were too many sub-plots, one of which was added for humor but could have been left out entirely, and the ending was weak. This was definitely not my favorite of Ms. Gerritsen’s books.