CHRISTMAS Eve, only this ain't no Holy Night. A definitely unseasonal scene opens Gerritsen's latest "masterpiece". Or that is how the publishers chose to define it. In a run-down house in Boston, a woman's body has been cut to pieces in a manner that leaves even the veteran cops struggling to hold down their last hamburger.

There is a possibility that the savagery was part of a Satanic ritual. Drawn on the wall, the one area not covered in blood, are ancient symbols and words in Latin which read, when seen in a mirror, "I have sinned". Always puzzles me as to why killers should go to the trouble to write backwards on walls. Why not just get the hell away?

And we are talking hell here. A second woman is found cut to pieces, this time outside the house of Anthony Sansone, a recluse and head of an organisation called the Mephisto Club, an ancient, secret society marshalled to confront evil. If he is a recluse, how come he heads an organisation that meets regularly?

Anyway, on Sansone's door are more Latin words, written backwards. Looks like evil wants to confront the Mephisto Club. Satanic turkeys coming home to roost. Next to get it in the neck is a cop, Eve Kassovitz, and she was armed at the time.

As the bodies mount, so too does the detail.

Gerritsen is a physician by profession. And, boy, does she like reminding us. If you want to know what proximal rows are, or a scaphoid, or the styloid process, then this is your book. If you want a traditional detective thriller, then this is not for you.

Gerritsen comes trailing clouds of glory from past books, and she does write extremely well. This time she just chose an outlandish piece of hooey.