The Deadhouse: A Novel (Alexandra Cooper Mysteries) - Hardcover

Fairstein, Linda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743224035 ISBN 13: 9780743224031

Publisher: Scribner, 2001

Synopsis

Assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper becomes involved in the investigation into the murder of Manhattan political science professor Lola Dakota, a crime that may have ties to the disappearance of a student eight years before and whose only clue lies in "The Deadhouse," the Roosevelt Island site where smallpox patients were sent to die in the nineteenth century. (Suspense)

About this title

Review:

Smart, sexy, Manhattan assistant DA Alexandra Cooper--hero of Linda Fairstein's increasingly popular series--is taking her latest murder case very personally. Lola Dakota, abused wife and brilliant university professor, wouldn't cooperate when Cooper wanted to charge her ex-husband with assault. So when she's murdered, he's the logical suspect--except that he had been arrested just before the murder. So Alex needs another suspect.

Unable to protect Lola alive, Alex is determined to find the killer and bring him to justice. All she has to go on is a scrap of paper in the murdered woman's pocket with the words "The Deadhouse" on it, along with a series of numbers. Deciphering the clue leads Alex and Mike Chapman, her favorite homicide cop, to an abandoned gothic hospital on New York's Roosevelt Island, where smallpox victims went to die a century ago. Because of its history, the Deadhouse held a special attraction for Lola and for several of her university colleagues; and, as it turns out, almost all these deftly drawn minor characters had a reason to want Lola dead. Illuminating their personalities and motives gives Fairstein an opportunity to skewer the academic infighting that goes on at an elite Ivy League school.

The author's background as head of the New York district attorney's Sex Crime Unit is just one of the many assets she brings to her fast-paced, intricately plotted thrillers. What makes this one a standout is the wealth of historical detail about 19th-century New York, which adds an extra dimension of verisimilitude to an engrossing, atmospheric, and suspenseful read. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

Linda Fairstein, America's foremost prosecutor of crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, has led the Sex Crimes Unit of the Manhattan DA's Office for twenty-five years. Her first novel, Final Jeopardy, was published in 1996 and was made into an ABC Movie of the Week starring Dana Delaney. Likely to Die in 1997 and Cold Hit in 1999 also achieved international bestseller status. She lives with her husband in Manhattan and on Martha's Vineyard.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0743224035
• ISBN 13: 9780743224031
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 560