Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen

Tess Gerritsen has found her niche writing medical thrillers. Although she loved Nancy Drew as a child and wanted to write books like those, she attended medical school and practiced medicine in Hawaii. Her Rizzoli and Isles series has been developed into a TNT television show and she continues to turn out quality crime novels.

Her latest best-seller of the Rizzoli and Isles series is a combination suspense thriller, medical crime shocker, and romance.

Medical Examiner, Maura Isles, heads west for a medical conference in the mountains of Wyoming with serious misgivings about her current romantic relationship with a Catholic priest. She meets up with a fellow M.E. she knew in college and agrees to accompany him, his teen-aged daughter, and another couple on a cross country skiing jaunt.

Soon, however, things begin to go terribly wrong. A heavy snowfall causes them to veer off the main road and become dangerously lost; eventually becoming stranded in a ravine. They manage to stagger through the deep snow where they find refuge in a lonely setting of abandoned cabins The place is eerily forbidding and Maura soon finds evidence of a possible assualt. It becomes evident that some religious cult had occupied the settlement, and Maura can only speculate on their whereabouts.

Meanwhile FBI friend Rizzoli becomes concerned about Maura and flies to Wyoming to determine what has transpired. The insuing search, and Maura's desperate attempt to stay alive while unknown adversaries doggedly track her through the wilderness, will keep you glued to your recliner.

This is an amazingly well-written novel, and I somehow know that if it were made into an equally well-produced movie it would have your heart racing. The characters are skillfully created and it is deviously difficult to figure out who is on the side of justice and who has their own dangerous agenda. I don't know what caliber doctor Tess Gerritsen was, but she is definetly a talented writer. On a scale of 1 to 10.I rate "Ice Cold" an 8.

The Rule of Nine by Steve Martini

Steve Martini has authored several best sellers featuring defense attorneys Paul Madriani and Harry Hines, along with their investigator Herman Diggs. The latest in the series, "The Rule of Nine", takes up from the previous book in which the firm is involved in a dangerous plot in Costa Rica, where a terrorist master-mind known as Thorn is supposedly killed.

However Thorn is alive and well and sweet-talks young government worker Jimmie Snyder into giving him a tour of a restricted area in a Washington government building. Later Jimmie is found murdered, although clumsily set up to look like suicide. Madriani's business card is found in Jimmie's pocket, and the FBI is quickly asking a lot of questions.

Jimmie's attorney father soon approaches Madriani to assist him in determining what really happened to his son. There appears to be a link to a ruthless murder-for-hire criminal known as Liquida. As the firm begins to put the pieces together about a terrorist conspiracy in America, Liquida begins to target the attorneys and their families.

When it becomes known that the plot involves bombs with enormous ramifications if activated, and that a highly ranked American politician is involved, Madriani takes to the road to quash the threat.

The author does an excellent job of grabbing your attention in the first pages and keeping you rivited in this nailbiter. This is a great thriller for those who appreciate adventure packed fiction. Reserve yourself a quiet weekend, as it is hard to put down. On a scale of 1 to 10 I rate it a 7.