THE MEPHISTO CLUB begins as I imagine many crime novels do: with a murder.  It is Christmas Eve in Boston when Detective Jane Rizzoli and Doctor Maura Isles get the call.  They arrive at the scene to discover a blood bath, disturbing in both the horrendous state of the victim but also in the writing and symbols left on the wall:  Three upside down crosses and the words 'I have sinned'.  Even worse, this murder is followed very shortly by another, and then a third, each one as horrific as the last.  And tied up in them, the two women discover the Mephisto Foundation, a group of proposed demon hunters led by the dark and mysterious Anthony Sansone.  The Foundation is convinced that the killer they seek is not human at all but something far older and more sinister.  Though both Jane and Maura don't believe a word it, the farther they travel into the mystery and the closer it comes to both their lives, the more they discover that the Mephisto Foundation may be even closer to the truth they even they themselves had imagined.

Let me begin by saying I haven't read a lot of crime fiction.  I chose this book not because I knew the author, Tess Gerritsen, or any of her other novels.  I chose it because I have had a lifelong interest in the occult and, admittedly, I am a sucker for anything that even uses an occult buzzword.  I did, however, enjoy the novel.  It was a light read, one I instantly categorized as a summer novel, the kind you through in a beach bag to flip through while using up your vacation time.  It was well paced, rarely stopping for a breath as it followed the mystery to its conclusion.  It held a lot of good points but for every one, I found a bit of a balance of the negative.  The characters were human, so much so that their individual lives gained focused throughout the novel as subplots.  The problem was that they never saw completion so the conflicts presented were left open when the crime itself was solved.  There was a lot of detail in the medical information, as to be expected of an author with a medical background, but, like the crime fiction serialized on television, a lot of it was over the top.  In one particular section, a lab tech spent paragraphs on the properties of clay and chalk to a depth that I had a hard time believing anyone would have, especially someone for whom such knowledge would be peripheral.  Finally, the occult piece, the very reason I picked up the book.  This was where I was the most frustrated.  The Mephisto Foundation (note, I don't recall a single instance within the novel that it was called the Mephisto Club) was supposed to be a collection of extra intelligent, well connected, influential people from multiple fields with expansive knowledge in the occult for the purpose of seeking evil.  Yet, all the information they presented seemed like stuff you would find in the 'ABC's of Occult'.  As someone who has made a habit, even if unintentionally, of soaking up occult knowledge, it was almost insulting to have most of it presented to me as new information, and the fact that the other characters, namely the two main female protagonists, knew none of what was presented was even more so.

In conclusion, I did enjoy the read.  The twists near the end did surprise me enough to make them enjoyable and I wanted to know what the last page would bring.  If you are a fan of crime novels but don't have a lot of occult knowledge, THE MEPHISTO CLUB is a great light read, one I hope is representative of the genre.  If you are a fan of the occult, don't let the title mislead you.  It's a good book but it's not what you're looking for.