Tess Gerritsen

Author

Award-winning and bestselling author Tess Gerritsen has written thirty books that have been published in forty countries and sold more than 40 million copies. Many of her novels have been top 3 bestsellers in the U.S. and #1 bestsellers abroad. Critics around the world have praised her thrillers as “pulse-pounding fun” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “scary and brilliant” (Toronto Globe and Mail), and “polished, riveting prose” (Chicago Tribune), with Publisher Weekly naming her the “medical suspense queen.”

The daughter of a Chinese immigrant and a Chinese American seafood chef, Tess Gerritsen grew up in San Diego and dreamed of writing her own Nancy Drew novels. But her family encouraged her to pursue a career they thought would be more viable. She graduated from Stanford University and went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she earned her M.D. While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, Gerritsen began to write fiction, and in 1987, her romantic suspense novel, Call After Midnight. was published, followed by eight more romantic thrillers. She also wrote a screenplay, Adrift, which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.

Gerritsen made her New York Times bestseller debut with her first medical thriller, Harvest, in 1996 and went on to write many more bestselling books. Her series of police procedurals featuring Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the TNT hit television series Rizzoli & Isles, starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander. In 2021, she co-authored (with Gary Braver) Choose Me, an Amazon Charts bestselling stand-alone thriller.

Her new espionage series featuring a mature group of retired spies who call themselves the Martini Club, launches with THE SPY COAST, which Thomas & Mercer will publish in Fall 2023.