Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, and was awarded her M.D. in 1979. After completing her internal medicine residency, Tess worked as a physician in Honolulu, Hawaii.
While on maternity leave, she began to write fiction. On a whim, she submitted a literary short story to HONOLULU MAGAZINE’s statewide fiction contest — and won first place!
In 1987, Tess’s first novel was published. CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT, a romantic thriller, was soon followed by eight more romantic suspense novels. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift,” which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.
It was a chance dinner conversation that inspired Tess to write her first medical thriller. The man sitting beside her at the restaurant was an ex-cop who ran a security service protecting American businessmen in Russia. On his last trip abroad, Moscow cops had told him that Russian orphans were vanishing from the streets. They believed the children were being kidnaped by the Russian mafia and shipped abroad as organ donors.
The story so horrified Tess, she immediately called her brother-in-law, a reporter for NEWSWEEK, suggesting he investigate. NEWSWEEK was unable to track down any proof. Weeks later, Tess was still unable to forget those missing Russian orphans. They became the inspiration for the plot of her first medical thriller, HARVEST. HARVEST was released in hardcover in 1996, and marked Tess’s debut on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list. Film rights were sold to Paramount/Dreamworks, and the book was translated into twenty foreign languages.
Since then, Tess has written the medical thrillers LIFE SUPPORT (1997), BLOODSTREAM (1998), GRAVITY (1999), THE SURGEON (2001), THE APPRENTICE (2002), THE SINNER (2003), BODY DOUBLE (2004) and VANISH (2005.) Critics around the world have praised her novels as “Pulse-pounding fun” (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER), “Weirdly terrific stuff with a steel grip” (KIRKUS REVIEWS), “Scary and brilliant” (TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL), “Like Michael Crichton in medical mode” (LONDON GUARDIAN), “Polished, riveting prose” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE), and “Delightfully scary” (PEOPLE MAGAZINE). USA TODAY says Tess is “tops in her genre” and the SAN JOSE MERCURY has declared her “The reigning champion of the medical thriller.”
Now retired from medicine, Tess writes full time. She and her family live in Maine. In her free time she enjoys gardening and playing the fiddle.
This biography and other information about Tess Gerritsen are available at tessgerritsen.com.
