Tess Gerritsen has brought back Boston Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli for a second outing in The Apprentice, a follow-up to her bestselling The Surgeon. She's also brought back serial killer Warren Hoyt and paired him with an equally sick killer the homicide squad has labeled the Dominator due to his choice of victims and style of murder.

There’s an obvious homage to Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs and the character of Hannibal Lecter. Gerritsen might have started with similar real estate, but she has, however, built an original experience out of it. Besides that, serial killers had been killing for years before Harris made reading about them all the rage.

I love the character of Jane Rizzoli. She’s a good cop, intelligent and insightful, who’s almost buried in a male-dominated hierarchy. Her need to impress her colleagues and earn the social distinction of “equal” is compelling. I’ve known women like Rizzoli who struggled to survive in those kinds of worlds, for exactly the same reasons.

I also love the way Rizzoli fits into her family. Everyone there seems to dismiss her job as a homicide detective, even after she was nearly killed bringing in Hoyt. Despite Rizzoli’s hard-as-nails exterior, Gerritsen shows how vulnerable her lead character is on the job, with her family, and when she’s by herself. Rizzoli is a fully realized personality, equipped with strengths, weaknesses, and the seeds for her own potential self-destruction.

Gerritsen’s writing has won me over, though. It’s tight and polished, and moves quickly. These early novels focus on the trials and tribulations that Rizzoli goes through, and -- beginning with The Sinner — picks up on Dr. Maura Isles’s complicated life as well.

But The Apprentice starts off like a bullet with the murder scene where a man is found dead, tied up and obviously made to watch something. Further investigation reveals the man was married but his wife is now missing. Crime scene analysis reveals that a woman was there, and neighbors’ reports confirm that the couple was home together. So Rizzoli wants to know where the wife is.

Immediately Rizzoli believes they’re looking for a serial killer. Not only that, the violence reminds her of Warren Hoyt and her brush with death in The Surgeon. Even though she won’t admit it even to herself, Rizzoli hasn’t gotten over that. Nightmares plague her and her apartment has taken on a veneer of fear that just won’t go away.

Further complicating matters, FBI Agent Gabriel Dean arrives on the scene early as well. No one knows what’s drawn him there, and he’s not going to give any information. He’s quiet and taciturn, completely focused on the investigation. He also rapidly becomes Rizzoli’s nemesis, constantly questioning her, confronting her, and going behind her back to her superiors.