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Review
Gravity
Gravity by
Tess Gerritsen
Pocket Books
342 pages, 1999
ISBN 0671016784
Reviewed by PJ Nunn

Read our review of Bloodstream
Read our author interview


Due to a tragic accident, Emma Watson, a brilliant research physician, is suddenly scheduled for the trip of a lifetime - a NASA shuttle launch for a brief space station stay. She's thrilled at the prospect, but it leaves little time to settle the troubling issues of her impending divorce from physician Jack McCallum.

As Emma rockets out into space, Jack soon discovers a terrifying secret. When the shuttle returns from the trip after depositing Emma on the space station, all of the astronauts are dead. Worse, the cause of death is being hushed by presidential intervention. In a matter of hours, Emma suspects a problem that is soon confirmed by the inexplicable sudden illness of first one coworker, then another. Racing against time to determine the cause, Emma soon learns that she and her coworkers are stranded in the middle of space. The government can't risk their return to earth as long as there is a chance of infecting the population.

Determined to bring his estranged wife home, Jack intensifies his efforts to identify the organism that infects and kills within a matter of days. But even if he locates the cause, Emma is stranded on the space station - the last living member of the team.

Tess Gerritsen is an extremely diligent and gifted author. Gravity is quite a departure from her previous medical thrillers, yet equally enticing. Her characters are well developed and engaging. The plot is complex and intriguing, and her ability to create a technical environment that is easily understood is unequaled. Gravity takes readers along to the depths of the ocean and the far reaches of outer space in a completely believable novel of intensity and passion.



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