Book ~ "The Bone Garden" (2007) - Tess Gerritsen

From Amazon.com ~ Julia Hamill discovers a skeleton buried in the garden of the Boston house she's just moved into; the ring found with the remains was in fashion in the 1830s, the fractured bones suggest murder. Flashback to 1830: medical student Norris Marshall, an outcast among his wealthier classmates, meets Rose Connolly in a Boston maternity ward, where Rose's sister recently died of childbirth fever. When several gutted bodies turn up in deserted alleyways, Rose and Norris are the only ones to catch a glimpse of the killer, dubbed the West End Reaper. Norris, Rose and Norris's fellow student, Oliver Wendell Holmes, race to uncover the truth behind the slayings, which will remind many of Jack the Ripper's crimes. In the present, Julia is able to trace their progress with the help of a relative of the house's former owner. Unfortunately, neither the present nor the historical story line maintains the suspense necessary for a whodunit spanning several generations.

This author was recommended to me by Linwood Barclay ... I'd never heard of her.

This was a quick read. I enjoyed the writing style (though it did get mired down with 1800s surgical details in some places) and it kept my interest.

I like historical stories and liked the way it flipped back and forth from the present to the past.

There were some twists at the end that I didn't see coming but they made sense.

It wasn't much of a thriller but I would recommend it as a lighter read.