Tess Gerritsen

Award-winning and bestselling author Tess Gerritsen has written more than 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. 

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.  

Tess Gerritsen lives in Maine. 

Q: The Summer Guests, the second book in your Martini Club series. is a local story set totally in Maine, as opposed to the international scope of the series debut, The Spy Coast. Why did you decide to make that pivot? 

Tess: After the globe-trotting exploits in THE SPY COAST, I wanted to bring the story closer to home, to show the community in which my characters live, and to explore the local tensions that swirl through their lives. Also, it gave me a chance to explore some of the real history of the CIA in Maine, and what may have inspired so many former spies to retire here.

Q: Tell us about the ongoing conflict between Maggie and her retired spy friends, and the local police chief Jo Thibodeau. Why are they at odds, and how has their relationship evolved in the second book? 

Tess: That conflict is a large part of why this series is so much fun to write. I love watching Jo slowly learn to value the expertise of the Martini Club, even as she continues to question their methods. I think of Jo as representing everything that’s good about small-town Maine. She’s connected, heart and soul, to her community. She’s a solid Maine girl who tries to play by the rules. In contrast, the Martini Club doesn’t feel constrained by any rules — they just want to complete the mission, using whatever means they must. While Jo still feels queasy about their methods, she’s learning to be flexible. And she’s learning to appreciate good whisky.

Q: You were inspired by the not-so-secret town secret that many retired spies come to settle where you live in Maine. Were there any real-life inspirations for this book’s storyline? 

Tess: It was the daughter of a local CIA retiree who first told me that the CIA’s MKULTRA project had a branch in Maine. MKULTRA operated worldwide, testing various psychoactive drugs on subjects who were sometimes unaware they were being used as guinea pigs. After the well-publicized death of one of their test subjects, the project was shut down and all the records were ordered destroyed. That bit of CIA history was certainly inspiration for part of the plot.

Q: What kind of feedback do you get about your books from the residents where you live? 

Tess: I get a lot of winks and nods. And a few quiet whispers of “did you know he worked for the Agency, too?” It’s no big secret that our community harbors a number of retired spies, and I hear occasional gossip about names and places in town that have special significance. I don’t know how much of it is true; like all raw intelligence, it must be treated with a certain amount of skepticism.

Q: The tension between summer visitors and the full-time residents of a vacation destination is fascinating and is really important to your plot. Why did you want to make that aspect a central part of this book? 

Tess: That tension between locals and those from away is very much a reality here. There’s also the economic disparity between the wealthy owners of summer homes, and the locals who tend to the needs of the rich, and it’s a situation ripe for conflict — and the perfect setting for a murder mystery.

Q: Are there any developments about the television series that you can share? 

Tess: It’s in active development at Amazon Studios, and I hope there’ll be more news in by April. I’ve read the pilot script, written by Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, and it’s riveting!

Q: Possible to get a sneak peek of Martini Club #3?  Title, a snippet of what it’s about? 

Tess: The title is THE SHADOW FRIENDS, and it focuses on Ingrid Slocum. When Ingrid’s ex-lover (who’s also a former spy) comes back into her life, it wreaks havoc on Ingrid’s marriage. Then Ingrid abruptly vanishes, and her husband Lloyd, with the help of his Martini Club friends, search for the reasons why Ingrid has been pulled back into the spying game.