Harvest

Abby DiMatteo is a top-notch second-year resident at Bayside Hospital in Boston. Dr. Wettig, the supervisor of the residency program, is known to be a hard-nose who never compliments any of the residents, but he shows a lot of respect for Abby. In addition to the respect she is receiving from her supervisor, the organ transplant team is also showing interest in Abby. They want her to be a part of their team when she finishes her residency.

Abby is ecstatic about the attention she is receiving from the transplant team, and even more excited when her boyfriend Mark, who is also on the transplant team, asks her to marry him. But all the wonderfulness starts to fade after Abby helps a teenage boy get the heart transplant that is rightfully show more his over a 40-year-old woman who's husband is wealthy and wants to "pay" for the heart. The teenage boy is saved but the cost may be Abby's life.

I'll just start this review by saying Tess Gerritesen knows how to write a thriller! Even though she writes the story so that the reader can make connections early on, the approach doesn't deter from the anticipation or excitement at all. It is kind of like watching a scary movie where someone enters a dark room with eerie music playing. You KNOW something is going to jump out at the person, but you still jump out of your seat when it happens. That is what this book easily compares to.

The concept of buying and selling organs in this book is nothing short of terrifying. Gerritsen writes in such a way as to evoke a tremendous amount of emotion from the reader: fear, horror, anger, mortification.

Gerritsen also has a gift when it comes to characterization. I absolutely fell in love with Yakov, a young Russian orphan who was so smart and had so much curiosity. He yearned for companionship, looking for it where ever he could find it.

And Abby is another great female character. She is faced with multiple lawsuits that the wealthy husband is arranging with all his money. She is a resident; she has no money to even begin to try to fight them, but she feels that she must do something. I found myself identifying with her frustration over the fact that money is the controlling factor, not what is RIGHT. Abby isn't a superwoman, she doesn't have the super powers to trump the evils of money. And sadly, everything doesn't turn out happily ever after. But it turns out believable, which in the end makes the book that much more frightening.

I listened to this book on audio. This was a Recorded Books version, read by George Guidall. One of the elements of Guidall's reading that stood out for me was how his pace increased with action that was taking place in the plot. I find myself doing that when I read myself, so I appreciated his tendency to do the same thing. While I enjoy Guidall's readings and I think he did a very nice job on this book, I also think his sound is a little too old for the characters that this book centered on. And I'm also a little curious why they chose a male reader over a female reader for this particular book. But, as with In Big Trouble, these factors aren't enough for me not to highly recommend it. I had a great experience listening to this audiobook. show less

The Gist:
"Medical resident Dr. Abby DiMatteo is elated when the elite cardiac transplant team at Boston's Bayside Hospital taps her as a potential recruit. But faced with a tormenting life-and-death decision, Abby helps direct a crash victim's heart to a dying teenager--instead of the wealthy older woman who was suppose to receive it. The repercussions leave Abby shaken and plagued with self-doubt."

Commentary: If you enjoy a good psychological thriller, Tess Gerritsen's novel Harvest is a must read. However, if you've recently had major surgery you might want to put this title aside, at least for the moment. That being said, Harvest immediately sucked me in to the world of medical residencies, transplant surgeries, and the daily grind show more of a hospital staff surgeon. The story's pace is fast, the plot interesting and enjoyably complex. Enjoyably complex? What does that mean? Enjoyably complex means that I found that while I had my suspicions of "who dunnit" and so on, I was never quite sure if I was right. The book overall did not strike me as formulaic, the plot intricate enough to be interesting, but not so complex that it was hard to follow, which for a thriller is a big plus. Harvest is a book I could really dig into and lose myself in. I had trouble putting it down. And I ended up getting as exasperated and frustrated as the main character, Abby DiMatteo.

Harvest falls into the genre of thriller, but it could also qualify as a horror story. Does Harvest have ghosts and ghouls? No. Does it have evil puppets or houses that hold vengeful spirits? No. What makes Harvest qualify as a horror story is that all of those elements do not exist in the story. Instead, Gerritsen uses an everyday setting: a normal hospital with normal doctors and surgeons and nurses. And patients. Patients who are desperately ill and whose relatives desperately want their loved ones to beat the odds and live. The real horror of this story is not necessarily the surgery prep details that qualify as TMI (too much information--I don't recommend eating a meal while reading this book.) Nor was it that there were many scenes that were frightening (and well written.) The real horror of the story is that these seemingly ordinary, well-respected professionals could be so evil. And that there were other people who were willing to go along with their plans.

Yes, I know. Harvest is a work of fiction, but it highlights many truths about life and people in general: That while this story is fictional, in real life, there are real people who will commit deeds as heinous or worse than those depicted in Harvest. That there are people in this world who believe that any ends justify any means. But thankfully, there are people in this world who oppose them. show less

When I realised where this was going, I had to stop reading for a while. But I got back into it and was gripped! Although it did feel too much was put in Abby's way, I knew that Abby would be betrayed, but the final betrayal was brutal.

At the end Yakov found his "mother" a happyish ending.

And at least someone else got their just desserts.

Wow. I admit to skimming through the detailed descriptions of the medical procedures, but so what? They're not my thing. The rest of this book, however, is AMAZING. Very suspenseful, full of emotion and twists and NOOO!! kind of moments. I could not put it down. I suspect that, on top of my catching up with her R&I books, I will be checking out everything Tess Gerritsen has written.

I gave this book a try since I had enjoyed the first of Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli books. I found this book to be fairly suspenseful. I tend to read crime fiction and mystery novels, but many years ago, I read mostly suspense and horror novels (Stephen King, Peter Straub, etc.), and this book reminded me of all the things I liked about that genre and also showed me what a natural progression it was to go from horror/suspense to crime. This book was a nice mixture of the two genres.

I will definitely be reading some of Gerritsen's other "pre-Rizzoli" novels!

Tipico medical thriller imperniato sul traffico internazionale di organi, come sempre alimentato dall'avidità umana, tra ricchi che pensano che il denaro possa pagare la vita e medici, tipicamente americani, facili prede di un sistema che li riempie di soldi dopo che per studiare si sono indebitati fino al collo.
I personaggi sono abbastanza stereotipati, tranne in piccolo orfano russo Jacov, che emerge per la sua mente limpida e la capacità di distinguere il bene dal male, fino ad ergersi a vero protagonista del romanzo.
Buona lettura per una giornta grigia.

Tipico medical thriller imperniato sul traffico internazionale di organi, come sempre alimentato dall'avidità umana, tra ricchi che pensano che il denaro possa pagare la vita e medici, tipicamente americani, facili prede di un sistema che li riempie di soldi dopo che per studiare si sono indebitati fino al collo.
I personaggi sono abbastanza stereotipati, tranne in piccolo orfano russo Jacov, che emerge per la sua mente limpida e la capacità di distinguere il bene dal male, fino ad ergersi a vero protagonista del romanzo.
Buona lettura per una giornta grigia.