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Book Review of Body Double (Rizzoli & Isles, Bk 4)

Body Double (Rizzoli & Isles, Bk 4)
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In the prologue to this Rizzoli and Isles thriller, a teenage girl is lured into the woods by a handsome classmate and then left in a pit to die. The boys name is Elijah Lanks.

The scene then switches over to Dr. Maura Isles visiting the catacombs under the city of lights, Paris, during a pathology conference. She returns home to find police cruisers with flashing lights outside of her home and Detective Jane Rizzoli on her front lawn with a puzzled expression on her face.

A dead woman has been found in a car parked on Mauras street, and the corpse is Mauras doublean identical twin. The corpse shares not only her birth date but her blood type. Maura, an adoptee, knows nothing about her birth mother or any family still living. Discovering that the same lawyer who handled Mauras adoption also handled the adoption of the dead woman is the starting point for Mauras journey to find her birth mother.

Janes investigation converges with Mauras personal journey. Jane realizes that the killeror killersare inextricably linked to Mauras past (and present), and Maura may be the next target. Jane finds Mauras birth mother, and shes not a mother to love.

Meanwhile, a serial killer is abducting pregnant women. One of his final victims, a pregnant unhappy woman named Mattie Purviswho has just realized that her husband is cheating on heris taken from her home. Ironically enough, she becomes the real hero of the book, not Jane or Maura, although they do have their moments. This is particularly true of Jane, who is 8 months pregnant in this book. The storys POV shifts between Jane, Maura, and Mattie. Jane is competent and strong, and Maura is the same with an appealing vulnerability.

The plot device of twins separated at birth has been done before, and better, but Gerritsens story is intense and personal. The melodrama that often characterizes her other Rizzoli and Isles novels is noticeably lessened here.