Mystery Monday: Linda Fairstein

--by Hanje Richards
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Because I am a huge mystery fan, "Mystery Monday" has been born. Because I like to read mysteries in order, I'm going to list and talk about them in chronological, rather than alphabetical, order. If an author has written more than one series (and many authors have), I'll talk about different series in different posts to keep things as clear as possible.
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For those interested in reading some of the featured titles, I've noted at the end of each book's summary whether it's available at the Copper Queen Library or at another library in Cochise County through Interlibrary Loan (ILL).
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Our first featured "Mystery Monday" author is New Yorker Linda Fairstein. A former prosecutor focusing on crimes of violence against women and children, she served as head of the Sex Crimes Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's office from 1976 until 2002 and is the author of a series of novels featuring Manhattan prosecutor Alexandra Cooper.
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Final Jeopardy (1996). No one knows the inner workings of the D.A.'s office like Linda Fairstein, renowned for two decades as head of Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit. Now, that world comes vividly to life in a brilliant debut novel of shocking realism, powerful insight, and searing suspense.
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Alexandra Cooper, Manhattan's top sex crimes prosecutor, awakens one morning to shocking news: a tabloid headline announcing her own brutal murder. But the actual victim was Isabella Lascar, the Hollywood film star who sought refuge at Alex's Martha'sVineyard retreat. Was Isabella targeted by a stalker or -- mistaken for Alex -- was she in the wrong place at the wrong time? In an investigation that twists from the back alleys of lower Manhattan to the chic salons of the Upper East Side, Alex knows she's in final jeopardy... and time is running out. She has to get into the killer's head before the killer gets to her. (Available at CQL)
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Likely To Die (1997). New York City's oldest and largest medical center is the scene of a ghastly attack: top neurosurgeon Gemma Dogenis, found in her blood-soaked office, where she has been sexually assaulted, stabbed, and designated by the cops as a "likely to die." By the time Alex has plunged into the case, it's a high-profile, media-infested murder investigation with a growing list of suspects from among those who roam the hospital's labyrinthine halls. As Alex's passion to find the killer intensifies, she discovers this hospital is not a place of healing but of deadly peril -- and that she is the next target for lethal violence. (Available at CQL)
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Cold Hit (1999). Alexandra Cooper has seen many murder victims, but few more disturbing than the silk-clad body of a woman, her hands and feet tied to a ladder, pulled from the turbulent waters at Manhattan's northern tip. With her colleagues, including NYPD detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, Alex races against the clock and hopes for a "cold hit" -- a DNA match that would reveal the identity of the murderer by linking the crime to someone already in the police database. But as the case pulls her into the exclusive world of East Side auction houses and cutting-edge Chelsea galleries, Alex discovers she may be marked as an expendable commodity in a chilling and deadly scheme.... (Available at CQL)
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Deadhouse (2001). On Roosevelt Island, a strip of land in New York City's East River, stands an abandoned 19th century smallpox asylum, "The Deadhouse," where the afflicted were shipped off to die. It's a gruesome bit of history perhaps best forgotten. But for Alexandra Cooper, it may be the key to a shocking murder that cuts deeper than the Arctic cold front gripping the city. A respected university professor is dead -- strangled and dumped in an elevator shaft. And while the school does damage control for anxious parents, Cooper and her close friend Detective Mike Chapman scramble for answers, fueled by the most daunting discovery: a piece of paper, found on the lifeless body of Professor Lola Dakota, that reads The Deadhouse... (Available at CQL)

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Bone Vault (2003). In the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exquisite Temple of Dendur, a monument to an ancient world, a very modern debate is raging at a gala dinner: a controversial new exhibit is fiercely opposed by many among the upper echelon of museum donors. Alex Cooper steps into this highly charged ring of power players only to make a much more troubling discovery: a young museum researcher has been murdered, her body shipped to the Met in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. Together with cops Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, Alex must penetrate the realm of the city's cultural elite to find a killer intent on keeping some secrets buried for eternity. (Available at CQL)
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Kills (2004). Manhattan Assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper is working feverishly on a tough trial, seeking justice for investment banker Paige Vallis. But in a heated "he said, she said" case, Alex learns that Paige herself has something to hide. Uptown, the murder of an elderly woman with an intriguing past has NYPD officer Mercer Wallace and detective Mike Chapman hunting for an item of stunning value that may have cost McQueen Ransome her life: a legendary Double Eagle gold coin. The twisting threads of the seemingly unrelated tragedies soon entangle Alex in a life-and-death struggle in the watery inlets of New Jersey known as the Kills... where a violent predator is determined to silence her forever. (Available at CQL)
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Entombed (2005). It was a crime scene Edgar Allan Poe himself could have conjured, only it was all too real: workers demolishing a nineteenth-century Greenwich Village brownstone where Poe once lived unearthed the skeleton of a young woman -- buried standing upright behind a brick wall. Manhattan Assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper takes on the gruesome case while in pursuit of the Silk Stocking Rapist, who is terrorizing the Upper East Side. But Alex discovers that one crime thread leads to the other as she follows a trail of clues to the Bronx Botanical Gardens, where a group of Poe devotees may shed light on a stone-cold, modern-day murder of Gothic proportions... and a cunning killer with a bone-chilling tale to tell. (Available at CQL)
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Death Dance (2006). Teaming up with longtime friends -- NYPD's Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace -- Assistant D.A. Alex Cooper investigates the disappearance of world-famous dancer Natalya Galinova, who has suddenly vanished backstage at Lincoln Center's Metropolitan Opera House -- during a performance.

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Among Galinova's lovers is Joe Berk, the colorful, strong-willed boss of the Berk Organization, one of four family companies that own all the legitimate theaters on Broadway. The aging ballerina was using Berk to help revive her career at the time of her disappearance. Cooper, Chapman, and Wallace go underground and backstage at the Met, explore Berk's unusual apartment on top of the Belasco Theatre with its rumored ghostly resident, and then discover bizarre circumstances at City Center, which has a peculiar history not one of them knew about until now.

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They meet Joe's niece Mona Berk, who is mounting a vicious campaign to extract her share of the family fortune, and stunning starlet Lucy DeVore, whose beauty may be her fatal undoing. Chet Dobbis is the artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera, and therefore privy to the most scandalous exploits among its famous inhabitants. He also knows every inch of the labyrinthine building into which the ballerina disappeared... (Available at CQL)

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Bad Blood (2007). Hundreds of feet below Manhattan, a treacherous tunnel maze is inhabited by the sandhogs, teams of workers who are rebuilding New York City's deteriorating water supply system. Their dark and dangerous world turns deadly when a catastrophic explosion rips through Water Tunnel #3, sending shock waves that are felt throughout the city and inside the courtroom where Alexandra Cooper is dead-set on nailing young businessman Brendan Quillian for the murder of his wealthy wife. The blast sends Alex's case in a shattering new direction -- and pulls her and detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace underground to dig up ancient rivalries and homicidal secrets that may pull Alex in too deep... Brimming with Linda Fairstein's trademark blend of brilliant detective work, cutting edge forensics, and electrifying legal drama, Bad Blood melds two distinctive and riveting New York domains with seamless authenticity and nerve-jangling suspense. (Available through ILL)

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Killer Heat (2008). It's August in New York, and the only thing that's hotter than the pavement is Manhattan D.A. Alex Cooper's personal and professional life. Just as she's claiming an especially gratifying victory in a rape case, she gets the call: the body of a young woman has been found in an abandoned building. The brutality of the murder is disturbing enough, but when a second body is found in Brooklyn, beaten and disposed of in the exact same manner, the city's top brass want the killer found fast. Relying on razor sharp instincts, a whip-smart partner, and one big break, Alex races to find the killer and keep him from killing again, even if it's at her own peril. (Available at CQL)
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Lethal Legacy (2009). When Assistant District Attorney Alex Cooper is summoned to Tina Barr’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, she finds a neighbor convinced that the young woman was assaulted. But the terrified victim, a conservator of rare books and maps, refuses to cooperate with investigators. Then, another woman is found murdered in that same apartment with an extremely valuable book, believed to have been stolen. As Alex pursues the murderer, she is drawn into the strange and privileged world of the Hunt family, major benefactors of the New York Public Library and passionate rare book collectors who may be willing to kill for their treasures. (Available at CQL)

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Hell Gate (2010). New York City politics have always been filled with intrigue and behind-the-scenes deals. In Hell Gate, Alex finds her attention torn between investigating a shipwreck that has contraband cargo -- human cargo -- and the political sex scandal of a promising New York congressman now fallen from grace. When Alex discovers that a woman from the wreck and the congressman's lover have the same rose tattoo -- the brand of a "snakehead," a master of a human trafficking operation -- it dawns on her that these cases aren't as unrelated as they seem and that the entire political landscape of New York City could hang in the balance of her investigation. As Alex looks on at the nameless victims in the morgue, she realizes she's looking at the present-day face of New York's long, dark tradition of human trafficking -- a tradition that began hundreds of years ago with slave trade from Africa, now a multimillion-dollar industry that will stop at no cost, even if that cost is Alex's life. (Available at CQL)