My rating: 4 of 5 stars


What’s done cannot be undone– Macbeth, William Shakespeare

What a departure for Tess Gerritsen and a successful one at that. I have read quite a number of her works in the famous Rizzoli and Isles series and also more than a couple of stand-alone’s. Of course with the successful Rizzoli and Isles being adapted to TV, it’s obvious she has an abundance of talent to cause that spine-tingling chills in her books and The Shape Of Night very firmly reinforces her expertise.

Ava Collette is fleeing from Boston in the wake of a tragedy, the guilt of which has caused her to be an alcoholic just to survive and cutting herself off from all her loved ones. She moves to a quaint house “Brodie’s watch” in a small coastal town in Maine to complete her long overdue food book. But the house is haunted by the ghost of Captain Brodie and before long she feels him, touches him and doubting her own sanity begins to yearn for him. To uncover the truth about the previous tenant of Brodie’s Watch who has gone missing and some unexplained deaths, Ava begins to dig into the past and soon ends up entangled in a very dangerous situation that leads to a brilliant climax.

Tess Gerritsen has written a beautiful Gothic mystery with a creepiness that forces us to read it with bated breath. The atmosphere in the book has a shadow of foreboding that is pleasurably frightening. I loved the mystery surrounding the house and could guess at all the thrills in the story but had no inkling how it was all gonna be tied up in the end.

Fair warning: There are some S&M sex scenes which are not too graphic but still left me with an “ugh” feeling and if not for that, this surely would have been a 5* book for me.



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