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 Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A Phi
Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical
school at the University of California, San Francisco, and was awarded
her M.D. in 1979. After completing her internal medicine residency, Tess
worked as a physician in Honolulu, Hawaii.
While on maternity leave, she began to write fiction. In 1987, her first
novel was published. CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT, a romantic thriller, was soon
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.
It was a chance dinner conversation that inspired Tess to write her
first medical thriller. The man sitting beside her at the restaurant was
an ex-cop who ran a security service protecting American businessmen in
Russia. On his last trip abroad, Moscow cops had told him that Russian
orphans were vanishing from the streets. They believed the children were
being kidnaped by the Russian mafia and shipped abroad as organ donors.
The story so horrified Tess, she immediately called her brother-in-law,
a reporter for NEWSWEEK, suggesting he investigate. NEWSWEEK was unable
to track down any proof. Weeks later, Tess was still unable to forget
those missing Russian orphans. They became the inspiration for the plot
of her first medical thriller, HARVEST. HARVEST was released in
hardcover in 1996, and marked Tess's debut on the NEW YORK TIMES
bestseller list. Film rights were sold to Paramount/Dreamworks, and the
book was translated into twenty foreign languages.
Since then, Tess has written the medical thrillers LIFE SUPPORT (1997),
BLOODSTREAM (1998), GRAVITY (1999), THE SURGEON (2001), THE APPRENTICE
(2002), THE SINNER (2003), BODY DOUBLE (2004), VANISH (2005), and THE
MEPHISTO CLUB. Critics around the world have praised her novels as
"Pulse-pounding fun" (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER), "Weirdly terrific stuff
with a steel grip" (KIRKUS REVIEWS), "Scary and brilliant" (TORONTO
GLOBE AND MAIL), "Like Michael Crichton in medical mode" (LONDON
GUARDIAN), "Polished, riveting prose" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE), and
"Delightfully scary" (PEOPLE MAGAZINE). USA TODAY says Tess is "tops in
her genre" and the SAN JOSE MERCURY has declared her "The reigning
champion of the medical thriller."
Now retired from medicine, Tess writes full time. Her next thriller will
be THE BONE GARDEN, to be published in the fall of 2007. She and her
family live in Maine. |
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