Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are about to face the most difficult and unique case of their professional careers. When the body of a taxidermist is found murdered, gutted and hanging upside down in his own home, everyone called to the case recognize that they have a brutal killer on their hands.

When Isles turns up both human and animal hair at the scene of the crime, the animal portion is attributed to a famous snow leopard, Kovo, from the Boston Zoo. As Rizzoli and Isles start linking this murder to others from around the country --- all done in similar hunter fashion --- they begin an uphill battle to prove they have a serial killer at large.

"I am pleased to report that DIE AGAIN pulls no punches, and the result is something unlike any of Gerritsen’s previous novels. The suspense and peril depicted within are excruciating, and readers will find themselves squirming in their chairs and checking under the bed while reading it."

However, that is not the most interesting thing about Tess Gerritsen’s DIE AGAIN. The story opens with an African safari from four years in the past set on the Okavango Delta, Botswana. The narrator is a British woman named Millie Jacobson, who is there with her soon-to-be estranged husband and bestselling novelist Richard Renwick. Little does Millie realize that she seemingly will be the lone survivor of this ill-fated safari.

It appears that the safari leader, a skilled hunter named Johnny Posthumus, may have a different game in mind --- one of the human variety. As members of the safari keep getting picked off like characters in an Agatha Christie novel, the remaining participants try desperately to fight back. Some, however, choose flight over fight as Millie escapes into the African jungle with two weeks to remain alive before the rescue team arrives. When she eventually emerges, she is not the same person.

Rizzoli and Isles continue to work their case and find heavy resistance within their own department when they attempt to tab the murders on a serial killer. Further forensic digging finds an unlikely tie between some of the victims --- the same deadly safari that Millie survived in Botswana.

Rizzoli and her husband, FBI Agent Gabriel Dean, take a literal leap of faith when they abandon Boston and fly to South Africa to visit Millie. Millie has been anxiously trying to forget the safari that still haunts her dreams and made her a shell of herself. She is remarried and refuses to leave the sanctuary of her new home in Cape Town. Rizzoli must recount her own history with a deadly stalker in order to convince Millie to come with her to Boston to help with their case. She may be the only person alive to identify the killer --- if he indeed is a member of her safari. Regrettably, even the skills of Rizzoli and Isles will fall short in keeping Millie from harm.

The title of the novel comes from Millie when she explains to Rizzoli that she found out what it was like to die during her two-week ordeal in the African jungle and does not want to be asked to die again. Meanwhile, the brutal killer remains at large and several steps ahead of the crew chasing him. He may wish to add Rizzoli and Isles --- along with Millie --- to his trophy wall.

The challenge with reading a fiction series that has a television counterpart is that the two tend to go in different directions, baffling those who are both readers and viewers. Series like "Dexter" and "True Blood" veered sharply from the text source to become almost unrecognizable. Then we have the FOX show "Bones," based on the Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan series, and TNT's "Rizzoli & Isles." Each has turned the characters into caricatures, and many of the episodes are watered down to the point of being corny.

I am pleased to report that DIE AGAIN pulls no punches, and the result is something unlike any of Gerritsen’s previous novels. The suspense and peril depicted within are excruciating, and readers will find themselves squirming in their chairs and checking under the bed while reading it. The backstory involving the safari is so intense that the distraction of the Boston-based chapters were a welcome relief for my nerves. Ring in the new year with one of the best thrillers written in 2014.