Product Description

It’s August in New York, and the only thing that’s hotter than the pavement is Manhattan D.A. Alex Cooper’s professional and personal 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, beaten and disposed of in exactly same manner, is found off the Belt Parkway, the city’s top brass want the killer found fast, before the tabloids can start churning out ghoulish serial killer headlines.

Between dodging the bullets of the gang members who are infuriated by Alex’s most recent courtroom victory and keeping a rendezvous with a charming restaurateur, a serial killer on the loose is the last thing she needs on her plate right now. Then a third victim is found, and it becomes clear to Alex and her team that time is not on their side.

Through Alex’s peerless interrogation skills—and one big break—the search becomes focused on someone who has a twisted obsession with the military, and things grow increasingly dangerous when the chase leads to a chain of small, abandoned islands around New York harbor.

Once again Linda Fairstein brilliantly orchestrates a page-turning mix of cutting-edge legal issues and forensics, New York City history, and spine-tingling suspense. And at the center of it all is Alex Cooper—stunning, single-minded, accomplished, and not to be trifled with whether she’s in or out of a courtroom.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1170057 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-11
• Released on: 2008-03-11
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.35 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

From Publishers Weekly
At the start of bestseller Fairstein's nail-biting 10th legal thriller to feature alter ego Alex Cooper (after 2006's Bad Blood), the Manhattan ADA takes a hit from a cigar at the urging of her longtime police ally, Mike Chapman—to cover the stench of a badly decomposed female body at a crime scene in an abandoned building near the Staten Island ferry. The victim later proves to be the first of a number of women in uniform targeted by the murderer, who may have military ties in his past. The trail leads to a notorious bar catering to underage drinkers, before a chance observation by a civilian shifts the inquiry dramatically. Meanwhile, Cooper is preparing to try Floyd Warren, a rapist whose first trial three decades earlier ended in a hung jury. Fairstein, whose professional résumé includes groundbreaking work in the field of sex crimes prosecution, manages to both entertain and educate, as Cooper struggles with the evidentiary challenges of the Warren rape case and with tracking a vicious serial killer. (Mar.)
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From AudioFile
Blair Brown, who has read several in Fairstein's Alex Cooper series, comfortably adopts the persona of Alex, a take-charge assistant D.A., who finds herself in the center of another New York-set mystery. This one involves a killer with a penchant for females in uniform. As the city bakes, Alex feels the heat professionally and personally. Brown is adept at switching from feisty, aggressive Alex on the job to the romantic Alex, who has a new French lover. He is distinctively voiced as are the villain and others. The abridgment makes sense and, fortunately, includes some New York City history, a trademark of this exciting series. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
“One of the best crime writers in fiction today.”

—Nelson DeMille

“Fairstein . . . makes the legal issues more exciting than any high-speed chase."
—New York Times