Audiobook Review: The Silent Girl by Tess Gerritsen

The Silent Girl
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Narrator: Tanya Eby
Series: Rizzoli & Isles (Book 9)
Publication: Brilliance Audio (July 6, 2011)
Length: 10 hours and 4 minutes

Description: In the murky shadows of an alley lies a female’s severed hand. On the tenement rooftop above is the corpse belonging to that hand, a red-haired woman dressed all in black, the body nearly decapitated. Two strands of silver hair — not human — cling to her body. They are Rizzoli’s only clues, but they’re enough for her and medical examiner Maura Isles to make a startling discovery: This violent death had a chilling prequel. Nineteen years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide in a Chinatown restaurant left five people dead. One woman connected to that massacre is still alive: a mysterious martial arts master who knows a secret she dares not tell, a secret that lives and breathes in the shadows of Chinatown. A secret that may not even be human. Now she’s the target of someone, or something, deeply and relentlessly evil. Cracking a crime resonating with bone-chilling echoes of an ancient Chinese legend, Rizzoli and Isles must outwit an unseen enemy with centuries of cunning — and a swift, avenging blade.

My Thoughts: The ninth book in the Rizzoli & Isles series begins with the discovery of a severed hand. One of the participants in a ghost tour thinks it is fake - until the blood starts dripping. 

Rizzoli and her partner are called in a discover a woman with a severed hand dead on the roof. Dressed in black and carrying no identification, the only clues are some unidentified hairs on the victim's body and the opinion that the woman was killed with a very sharp sword. 

Meanwhile, Maura Isles is testifying against a police officer in the death of a suspect in custody. The victim appears to have been severely beaten before dying in the back of the police car. Maura's testimony is not making her at all popular with other police officers.

Rizzoli's investigation leads to a nineteen-year-old murder-suicide that happened in the Red Phoenix restaurant which used to occupy the building where the body was found. There is a woman in Chinatown who is sure that the police got it wrong. She believes that the supposed killer was framed for the killing. Her husband was the waiter on duty and one of the victims. 

As Rizzoli looks into that case, she discovers that there is another seemingly connected crime. The revenge seeking woman had a thirteen-year-old daughter disappear a couple of years before the massacre. One of the other victims has a daughter disappear some months after the massacre. 

Rizzoli has a lot of questions about the new body and the old case. Why did a couple of the victims have Italian food in their digestive systems when they were eating in a Chinese restaurant? Was the colleague of the leader the Irish mob who was in for take-out the one the hit was aimed at? Where did the widow and daughter of the supposed shooter go after the crime?

The story was filled with action. I enjoyed the way Chinese mythology played into the story. 

I bought this one from Chirp April 4, 2022. You can buy your copy here.