Having read the six novels in Tess' `Rizzoli/Isles" series I thought I'd have a go at her earlier work, and Harvest from 1996. Another reviewer here suggests that this is her first book, but in fact it's her 12th - most of the first eleven were romantic fiction which she started writing in 1986. Anyway I was pleased to discover that Harvest is every bit as good as her more recent work, if anything it could quite easily be her latest novel and no-one would notice. I have a feeling that the experiences of central character Dr Abby DiMatteo are strongly adapted from the author's own in her previous career as a physician in Hawaii. It was a chance dinner conversation that inspired Tess to write this, 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 kidnapped 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 Harvest which 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 has been translated into twenty foreign languages.
If you have enjoyed The Surgeon, and the others in that series, I'm sure you'll like Harvest too. It's unlikely to disappoint.