Playing with Fire

About Tess Gerritsen

It is pretty rare for someone to achieve a Medical Doctor degree, become a practicing physician, and a very successful author. That is the career path followed by Tess Gerritsen, an internationally bestselling author. Tess graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Anthropology, then her MD. from medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. From there, began her interesting journey.

Tess went to work as a physician in Honolulu, Hawaii, and during a maternity leave from that job, she wrote her first romantic suspense novel, Call After Midnight, which was followed by eight other such novels. She also wrote a screenplay, Adrift, which became a 1993 CBS movie starring Kate Jackson.

The author then began writing medical thrillers in 1996, with her novel, Harvest, which was her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. More than 15 books in the medical suspense genre followed. They were all aptly named, such as.....Life Support, Bloodstream, The Surgeon, The Bone Garden, and several others. Her books have been published in many countries, with over 30 million copies being sold internationally.

Tess Gerritsen's series of novels featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the very successful TNT television series, Rizzoli and Isles. She is now retired from medicine, and continues to write full time from her home in Maine.