The Surgeon combines medical knowledge, suspense, and criminal investigation. It is representative of the sub-genre known as medical thrillers. There are a variety of types of medical thrillers. Many works in this genre combine science fiction elements to explore ethical questions in medical science, such as The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton or Off Target by Eve Smith, which focus on the threats medical advancements pose to humanity. The Surgeon, in contrast, uses factual, if heightened, depictions of medical science to create suspense and further the investigation into a series of murders. In this way, it is more akin to other crime thrillers that take place in a medical setting like Coma by Robin Cook and Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell.

In The Surgeon, the main character Catherine Cordell is an experienced ER surgeon who is being targeted by a mysterious serial killer, the eponymous surgeon. The narrative occasionally deviates from the investigation of the crime to a beat-by-beat depiction of Dr. Cordell treating a patient like one might see in a television show like ER or Gray’s Anatomy. It then returns to the main narrative of the investigation into the killer who uses his medical knowledge to surgically remove the uteruses of his victims. The killer and Dr. Cordell are thus two sides of the same coin: those who use their medical knowledge to hurt and those who use it heal.

The emphasis on the medical details of these crimes and the character’s work, as well as the occasional use of medical science in forensic analysis, situates The Surgeon within the medical thriller genre. Later works in the Rizzoli and Isles series lean even further into this genre with the introduction of Medical Examiner Maura Isles in Book 2, The Apprentice, and her incorporation as a main character in Book 3, The Sinner.