Dr. Maura Isles, Boston medical examiner, returns from a working vacation to Paris to find police cars and crime scene tape surrounding her home. When the cops see her, they are stunned – for you see, they thought she was the victim. Sitting in a car, outside of Maura’s home, is a woman who was shot to death. This dead woman looks exactly like Maura.

DNA tests quickly confirm the suspicion that their Jane Doe is indeed Maura Isles’ twin sister. Having been adopted, Maura knows nothing of her biological family – so the appearance of a long-lost twin sister – a sister found dead outside her own home, is disconcerting to say the least. The more Maura digs for the truth, the more she uncovers about her own unknown past – a past full of secrets, deceptions and murder.

Every genre fiction reader is well acquainted with the old “long lost twin” story line. It’s an extremely well worn plot device, and one this reviewer will admit to not being wild about. However, this is Tess Gerritsen – the same woman who delivered the gripping suspense of The Surgeon, The Apprentice and The Sinner. I was more than willing to shell out the hard cover price to see how she pulled it off – and does she ever. While the plot may sound like a cliché – it is anything but.

Gerritsen does have her own formula, and after four books in this series it still manages to deliver. The mystery isn’t so much who the bad guy is – it’s why the bad guy is doing it. The prologue always seems to feature a seemingly unrelated episode to the rest of the story, until the finish – when the author ties every single piece together. In this case, what does a teenage girl getting buried alive have to do with Dr. Isles’ dead twin sister?

All of the main players are back in Body Double from previous books. Detective Jane Rizzoli is working the case while being 8 months pregnant. Dr. Isles finds herself questioning who she is, and her feelings for a close friend, a Catholic priest. However what makes things really interesting is the poor woman who spends the majority of the book being buried alive. Her story, coupled with the investigation, grabs the reader by the throat and never lets go.

Tess Gerritsen’s brand of suspense is dark and gory, but her novels lack the pervasive depressing cloud that tends to hang over many novels of this nature. The characters have issues, the bad guys are really bad, but none of the characters wallow in misery. Sure they’re not Little Miss Merry Sunshine, but they live their lives, and do their jobs extremely well. It also helps that Gerritsen’s writing style is fast paced and the plot never drags. There is no saggy middle or anticlimactic finish. There are no unanswered questions and no fat - just the meat of a story that is pure suspense. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this riveted by a suspense novel – don’t let Body Double pass you by.

--Wendy Crutcher