(K)(2006) Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles are drawn into a satanic tale of the Mephisto Club whose goal is to find and destroy the devil incarnate. It appears that several murders are linked to the Devil but there has to be a logical explanation. Another good book by Gerritsen.Kirkus ReviewsDemons-'R-Us in this formulaic entry by one of the queens of the romance/thriller hybrid (Body Double, 2004, etc.). It's a very un-merry Christmas Eve for both Boston Medical Examiner Dr. Maura Isles and her friend and colleague Detective Jane Rizzoli, who find themselves called to Beacon Hill on business-an exceptionally brutal business. A young woman has been murdered, decapitated, dismembered, and on her bedroom wall, drawn in blood, there's a gnomic message left by her killer: three upside-down crosses and some symbols that at the moment defy interpretation. Enter the Mephisto Club, a kind of international think tank (read: symbol-unravellers) dedicated to the pursuit of unhappiness for all infernal creatures. Convinced that demons walk among us-on the surface indistinguishable from ordinary folk-Mephisto members make their expertise available to law-enforcement organizations such as Interpol, Scotland Yard and now the Boston PD. Skeptical Jane isn't all that impressed. Maura is sort of on the fence as to Satan-real or Satan-metaphor, but is less than focused on the issue. Actually, neither lady is quite her single-minded self these days. Jane is distracted by the flare-up in her parents' home. Her father may be philandering; her mother has retaliated with short skirts, push-up bras and come-hither looks. As for Maura, so smitten is she with handsome priest Father Daniel Brophy ("If I could sell my soul to Satan for your love, I think I would") that she is, in effect, benched. Nevertheless, the investigation does progress, and finally the suspects are all collected, Agatha Christie-like, in a remote mountain lodge, for the denouement. Some sizable plot holes, some purplish prose("Friendships are broken all the time, so are hearts"), but the Gerritsen fan base will survive intact.

Wow. I'm going to take a break from these for a while. Two extremely dark installments in a row. Yikes. I've always known Nephilim to be the race of half human-half angel warriors that protect us from evil. That's not the case in this book. In this book they are the evil.so says the Mephisto Foundation. So basically this book dives deep into folie-a-deux. Creeps me right out. ( )

Tightly written and the action moves along at a good pace. Some of the side stories involving forbidden love and marital discord seem superfluous but Gerritsen does give us an interesting twist on the psycho killer theme when she introduces a whiff of the supernatural. ( )

They looked like the perfect family. This was what the boy thought as he listened to the hired minister read platitudes from the Bible.
Only a small group had gathered on that warm and buggy June day to mourn the passing of Montague Saul, no more than a dozen people, many of whom the boy had just met. For the past six months, he had been away at boarding school, and today he was seeing some of these people for the first time. Most of them did not interest him in the least. But the uncle's family-they interested him very much. They were worth studying.

Peccavi, Latin for "I have sinned," is found at a grisly crime scene on Christmas Eve. The victim, Lori-Ann Tucker, is laid out in several locations in the house. It's the sort of crime scene that Detective Jane Rizzoli never wants to witness again. Along with partner Detective Barry Frost, Jane leads pathologist, Dr. Maura Isles, down the path of a madman, one they've never encountered before in their two-and-a-half years as friends. Digging deeper, they're led to an almost unknown group of people - The Mephisto Foundation - whose sole mission in life is to hunt demons. When members of their group start to fall victim to the madman, they fear the worse: They feared that their greatest fears has arise from the depths of Hell.

Gerritsen brings back a few old friends from novels past, including Father Daniel Brophy - as Maura Isles's love interest - and Dr. Joyce P. O'Donnell - the bitch who seems to turn up in every even number novel of the series. New characters include Anthony Sansone - multimillionaire member of the Mephisto Foundation - Gottfried Baum - also a member - and Lily Saul - who is running from a dark past.

The novel is deeply rooted in Christian, as well as other, mythology - mostly concerning demons and the Nephilim - the hybrid offspring of angels and humans. You don't need any background to these subjects to enjoy the book, luckily. Adding in characters who studied the significance into the plot line, Gerritsen made it easy to grasp (no matter your dogmatic preference).

Background of our killer is included in the text - much like Warren Hoyt's thoughts in the first two novels and Mila's (although she wasn't the killer) in Vanish.

At first, I wasn't too impressed with the idea of the Mephisto Foundation and its work. However, the open ending of the new team leaves me wondering if Tess Gerritsen ever plans on giving them their own series (which would be great). While the novel's plot line ends, several of the subplots are left unresolved - such as, Jane's parents' marriage and the relationship between Daniel and Maura.

All in all, the novel is worth the read - especially as someone gets her just desserts and two people fall at the hands of human nature.
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