Warren Hoyt’s story continues …

By Ande Jacobson

One year after the first book in the series was released, Tess Gerritsen’s second work in the Rizzoli & Isles series dropped in August 2002. The Apprentice picks up where The Surgeon left off with the same heart-stopping action and mind-bending puzzles that Gerritsen’s mystery/thrillers are known for. Gerritsen introduced Warren Hoyt, a skilled and pathological serial killer, in the first book. He’s in prison, but a new series of crimes that reek of his signature come to light. Detective Rizzoli and her team are immediately engaged, and so is Detective Vince Korsak in Newton, a Boston suburb and a different jurisdiction than Rizzoli’s territory. FBI Agent Gabriel Dean also appears for some unknown reason. Other parts of the federal government also kibitz later in the story causing additional confusion and misdirection. In this second book in the series, Medical Examiner Maura Isles is introduced, and she and Rizzoli begin their long-admired professional collaboration in crime fighting though their relationship doesn’t cross the boundary into level of personal friendship that they do in the television adaptation of the books. Dean and Korsak both have different prominence in the books than they did in the television series as well. Korsak is integral to the case in The Apprentice, although this is the only time he works professionally with Rizzoli and company despite his being a regular on TV.

Another crucial character introduced in this book is Dr. Joyce O’Donnell, a neuropsychiatrist ostensibly studying Warren Hoyt as part of her research into understanding what drives men like him. In the first book Hoyt committed crimes so horrific, they gave the investigative team nightmares even after he was eventually apprehended. To say that he’s dangerous is a gross understatement. Agent Dean is familiar with Dr. O’Donnell having met her in court on opposing sides of a criminal case. As he tells Rizzoli about his past encounter with her, he discloses that O’Donnell is a darling of defense attorneys looking for experts to offer mitigating testimony no matter how heinous the crimes their clients committed. Still, O’Donnell has a cordial relationship with Hoyt seeking to hear about his thoughts. In her frequent correspondence and visits with Hoyt, she claims to be researching why serial killers do what they do. She tells him that she wants to know how their actions make them feel, so she asks that he be honest with her and not leave out any details when he tells her of his crimes. Even Hoyt thinks this is odd, and he suspects that she takes some perverse pleasure or thrill in the descriptions she desires. He finds this fascinating and is more than happy to share the sordid details to delight her. A part of him wants to understand why he does what he does as well, and he sees his relationship with O’Donnell having the potential to help him understand himself better. That it gives her pleasure along the way doesn’t bother him.

That O’Donnell is studying and even enjoying Hoyt is disturbing on many levels, though at the outset, the investigative team isn’t tracking Hoyt. They know where he is and assume that he’s not involved. Despite what seems to be a pathological therapeutic situation, Rizzoli and company have a new killer on the loose who seems to have upped the ante on Hoyt’s crimes. This new unsub attacks couples, not single women, though his methods incorporate aspects of Hoyt’s modus operandi.

As she did in The Surgeon, Gerritsen continues to share Hoyt’s thoughts with readers chilling as they are. Of course things get even more disturbing when he escapes from prison early in the story. Those close to Rizzoli initially try to protect her from that information, but they realize that in order for her to protect herself, she has to know. And what of their current case? Is Hoyt’s escape connected?

The book’s title, The Apprentice, draws readers to an instant connection between Hoyt and the new killer, but the question of course becomes which is the teacher, and which is the apprentice? How are they connected if indeed they are? How does their connection manifest? The new killer is nicknamed The Dominator because of how he treats the couples he attacks. He makes the husband watch him assault the wife before killing the husband with Hoyt’s signature slash and kidnapping the wife for later disposal. And the couples involved seemingly have no connections to one another.

As before, readers learn the solution before the investigative team, but not too soon. And the resolution in this one is dramatic and satisfying, albeit a bit gruesome, but then it is a murder mystery after all. Gerritsen also continues to educate readers along the way with deep insights into both forensic and medical disciplines through her characters in the course of the story. Her inclusion of technical jargon in a way that’s not cumbersome or pedantic is fascinating. There’s always somebody in the scene to teach, so readers along for the ride learn by osmosis to some extent.

The Apprentice is somewhat cerebral, but then Gerritsen’s investigators and villains are intelligent and complex individuals. Their working relationships are plausible. Their skillsets stretch slightly beyond the likely just a bit given they take very few missteps along the way. All are damaged in different ways, pushing themselves beyond what many would consider normal limits.

This second book is also a crucial piece in what will become some long-standing relationships throughout the series, and those relationships differ widely from the associated television series, in many ways for the better.

For Gerritsen’s Rizzoli & Isles book series, it’s far preferable to read the books in order because they do build on one another. They aren’t all as tightly coupled as these first two, at least where the villains are concerned, but even there, there are some further encounters with characters later in the series in different contexts. Like the first book, this one is difficult to put down, although this one’s epilogue is chilling in a very different way.

References:
The Surgeon, by Tess Gerritsen
The Apprentice, by Tess Gerritsen
Doctors make the scariest villains
https://www.tessgerritsen.com/
https://www.starttv.com/lists/the-differences-between-the-rizzoli-isles-books-and-tv-show