BACKGROUND
From the author's website
Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her M.D.
While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, she began to write fiction. In 1987, her first novel was published. Call After Midnight, a romantic thriller, was followed by eight more romantic suspense novels. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift”, which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.
Tess’s first medical thriller, Harvest, was released in hardcover in 1996, and it marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Her suspense novels since then have been: Life Support (1997), Bloodstream (1998), Gravity (1999), The Surgeon (2001), The Apprentice (2002), The Sinner (2003), Body Double (2004), Vanish (2005), The Mephisto Club (2006), The Bone Garden (2007), The Keepsake (2008; UK title: Keeping the Dead), and Ice Cold (2010; UK title: The Killing Place.) Her books have been translated into 37 languages, and more than 20 million copies have been sold around the world.
Her books have been top-5 bestsellers in the United States and abroad. She has won both the Nero Wolfe Award (for Vanish) and the Rita Award (for The Surgeon). Critics around the world have praised her novels as “Pulse-pounding fun” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “Scary and brilliant” (Toronto Globe and Mail), and “Polished, riveting prose” (Chicago Tribune). Publisher Weekly has dubbed her the “medical suspense queen”.
Now retired from medicine, she writes full time. She lives in Maine.
Additional info from Wikipedia
Tess Gerritsen was the child of a Chinese immigrant and a Chinese American seafood chef in San Diego, California. While growing up, Gerritsen often dreamt of writing her own Nancy Drew novels. Although she longed to be a writer, her family had reservations about the sustainability of a writing career, prompting Gerritsen to choose a career in medicine. In 1975, Gerritsen graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in Anthropology, intrigued by the ranges of human behavior. She went on to study medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She received her medical degree in 1979 and started work as a physician in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Inspired by the romance novels she enjoyed reading while working as a doctor, Gerritsen’s first novels were romantic thrillers. After two unpublished 'practice novels', Call After Midnight was bought by publisher Harlequin Intrigue in 1986 and published a year later. Gerritsen continued on to write another eight romantic thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue and Harper Paperbacks.
In 2001, Gerritsen's first crime thriller, The Surgeon, was released introducing homicide detective Jane Rizzoli. Although Rizzoli was only a secondary character in The Surgeon, the character has been a central focus of a series of seven books along with medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles and the Rizzoli & Isles television series with Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander portraying the main characters respectively.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gerritsen categorizes her work as follows:
Rizzoli & Isles series
1. The Surgeon
2. The Apprentice
3. The Sinner
4. Body Double
5. Vanish
6. The Mephisto Club
7. The Keepsake (UK version: Keeping the Dead)
8. Ice Cold (UK version: The Killing Place)
9. The Silent Girl
Medical Thrillers
1. Gravity
2. Bloodstream
3. Life Support
4. Harvest
5. The Bone Garden
UK Crime Thrillers (currently distributed only in the UK)
1. Girl Missing
Romance Novels
1. Keeper of the Bride
2. Thief of Hearts
3. Peggy Sue Got Murdered
4. In Their Footsteps
5. Presumed Guilty
6. Whistleblower
7. Never Say Die
8. Call After Midnight
9. Under the Knife
SHELFARI LINKS
Author page: http://www.shelfari.com/authors/a852/Tess-Gerritsen/
Bibliography page: http://www.shelfari.com/authors/a852/Tess-Gerritsen/books
