I wasn't impressed with how this started out--the prologue is first person present from the point of view of the murderer--and in italics. The same is true of the epilogue and several interludes through the novel. This technique strikes me as both cliched in this genre and cheesy. Keep the italics to the occasional word of emphasis, thank you--italics used for entire scenes to create atmosphere are hard to read and overdone.
Most of the narrative though is third person rotating between three points of view: First, Doctor Catherine Cordelli, trauma surgeon, once and perhaps future victim of a serial killer dubbed "the surgeon" because of the way he takes the uterus of his victim as a souvenir. Then there's Detective Tom Moore, Mr Sensitive who early on seems marked to be her love interest, and finally Jane Rizzoli, the proverbial touchy, tough-as-nails girl-in-a-man's-world cop on the team investigating the murders. The other two characters are more prominent in this book, but it's Rizzoli who will carry the series in future books. She didn't for me stand out in such a way I want to follow her in other books--I found her unlikable, the kind of person I'd hate to work with--or spend time with.
The novel is very readable and and the law enforcement and medical worlds are well-drawn and credible, which is a lot of what kept me reading. It doesn't however have much to make it truly memorable--except maybe the gory details of the attacks; not a book for the squeamish. There's no distinct style, play of ideas, character study, or humor to make this stand out from the usual serial killer police procedural. It's a cut above James Patterson, but not the equal of a Thomas Harris in drawing a serial killer or a Janet Evanovich or Elmore Leonard or Elizabeth George in terms of voice or evoking a sense of place or indelible characters or dialogue that zings or snaps. Overall, The Surgeon is an entertaining book to pass the time, but not a keeper.
