Linda Fairstein at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 04/02/2008

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Linda Fairstein - Page 1

24 Jan 08

Interview - Linda talks to Tangled Web about the changes in her life and writing since her "retirement" as Assistant District Attorney and Head of the Manhattan Sex Crime Unit

Interview with Tangled Web

WebPage: http://www.lindafairstein.com

About the Author (Photo (c) Sigris Estrada)

Bibliography

Hardback
Little,Brown (2008)

Killer Heat
In District Attorney Alexandra Cooper’s line of work, the discovery of a corpse isn’t unusual. Not even the corpse of a young woman who was bound, bludgeoned and tortured to death. It’s the location which is unusual - an abandoned ferry terminal at the southern tip of Manhattan. The ferries from here only went to one destination, the now uninhabited Governors Island. Also known as Ghost Island.
The corpse is identified as that of a part-time prostitute with a sideline in kink and a high-end client list. A list to kill for and, clearly, to die for ... but the list is missing, and so is another girl. Then her body is found. Another deserted location, another viciously violent killing. Alex, along with Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, fear the killer will find more victims before they can identify him.
There is a faint trail to follow, and there is a rape case for Alex to prosecute in a courtroom peppered with her enemies seeking a rougher kind of justice. But when another young woman disappears at an isolated site not far from Governors Island, Alex knows where her priorities lie and she has no hesitation in joining the desperate hunt for a singularly depraved murderer. A chase which catapults her into one of the most chilling encounters of her life.
‘Engaging characters, an intelligent story full of twists’ The Times
'A white-knuckle ride' Kathy Reichs
‘What separates The Kills from the pack is her keen eye for authenticity. She smoothly blends her vast courtroom and police procedural knowledge with flat-out great storytelling and poignant insights into the history of the city she clearly loves’ Harlan Coben
A triumph of complexity… culminating in a superb denouement beneath the streets of Manhattan' Guardian
'Handled wit the assurance we expect - distinctive and biting' Daily Express
'Fascinating reading in a mystery which stretches far beyond New York' Sunday Times

First British Edition Little,Brown (2007)

Bad Blood
Following the enormous success of Death Dance and Entombed, former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein captivates readers anew with Bad Blood, a fast-paced narrative that interweaves a mystery involving New York City’s hidden past with an electrifying contemporary case, featuring cutting-edge forensic breakthroughs.
Alexandra Cooper is in court for what promises to be an unusual trial as Bad Blood begins. The defendant is a young businessman charged with the murder of his wife, even though he was out of town the day of the killing. Cooper - battling against a talented adversary - plans to prove that the defendant hired a hit man to do the job.
In the middle of the trial, the city is rocked by a cataclysmic explosion that interrupts the construction of Water Tunnel Number 3, more than six hundred feet below street level. Was it terrorism? Political retribution? An accident? All are possibilities. But when a strange connection between the tunnel workers and Cooper’s defendant is revealed, Alex finds herself going deep underground to investigate the dangerous water tunnels of New York and exhume the decaying body of a young murder victim - finally unravelling the baffling circumstances that are threatening to undermine Alex’s pursuit of the murderer.
‘Impeccably plotted and thoroughly engrossing novels’ Daily Mail
‘Intelligent, authentic and high on suspense’ Woman and Home

First British Edition Little,Brown (2005)

Entombed
The Silk Stocking Rapist made flashy fodder for the press, targeting New York’s wealthier women. And then he just disappeared, leaving the police with only a composite sketch of his appearance. His victims’ descriptions made him look almost cherubic. Now, four years later, he’s back in Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper’s territory. Yet she and detective Mike Chapman have only science, in the form of DNA, to help them.
But suddenly science is sidelined by history, with the macabre discovery of a woman’s body walled up in a historic house. It’s the house where Edgar Allen Poe penned an exquisite meditation on passion and revenge - a tale of being buried alive ... But this corpse, now a skeleton, was nothing to do with Poe. It dates from 1978.
And then the Silk Stocking Rapist strikes again. Or does he? This time the victim is murdered. Her death at least means that her greatest fear will never be realised - her terror of being buried alive. A terror, as Alex discovers, that dates back to about 1978.
Are the cases linked? Or is someone trying to silence the witness to murder committed a quarter of a century before? Another death robs Alex of a possible clue, but then she discovers that the victim’s last phone call was to the Raven Society, a secretive organisation dedicated to the memory of Edgar Allen Poe ... Alex majored in literature, but nothing was such a hard study as this. Nor, as she and Mike are drawn ever deeper into a case that embraces the very fabric and history of New York, was anything quite so personally dangerous ...
‘Alexandra Cooper, like her creator, Linda Fairstein, is a force to contend with’ Sue Grafton

Hardback
Little,Brown (2004)

The Kills
Prosecuting Andrew Tripping for the assault of Paige Vallis is already hard enough for Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper. No evidence, no forensics, it is the classic `he said-she said’ scenario that is so difficult to prove. Which is why Alex is pinning her hopes on two contrasting individuals: Kevin Bessemer, Tripping’s cellmate at Riker’s, who claims to have incriminating information; and Dulles, Tripping’s ten-year-old son, who was in the house on the night in question.
But Bessemer will only speak to Alex face to face, and on the way from Riker’s to meet her he uses the situation to make good his escape. Interviewing Dulles is proving equally difficult: first the social workers won’t let her see him; then, when the judge does grant Alex permission, Dulles disappears.
Tripping’s past is also posing problems for Alex. A former CIA operative, Tripping still has influential friends, some of whom are suggesting to Paige that she drops the case. Then, as the trial begins, a murder overtakes the events inside the courtroom, and Alex is plunged into a race against time to discover the truth: a terrifying journey that ends up in the Kills, the eerie waterways along the coastline of New York’s harbour ...
In this brilliantly written thriller, Linda Fairstein captures both the high drama of the courtroom and the taut New York atmosphere. The Kills is a compelling page-turner that leaves the reader gasping for breath.

Paperback - Little,Brown (2004)

First British Edition Little,Brown (2003)

The Bone Vault
The glitzy reception at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art should have been a welcome evening off for Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper. But the announcement of a cooperative exhibition with the American Museum of Natural History is overshadowed by a ‘gruesome discovery: in an ancient sarcophagus bound for a show abroad, customs officials have found the body of a young woman.
Katrina Grooten was a quiet, studious, hard-working intern at the Cloisters, the magnificent but foreboding home of the Museum’s collection of medieval art. According to its records, Katrina had left her job several months earlier to return to her native South Africa: her eerily preserved body is grisly proof she’d never made it home. And the, whi lines on her fingernails are the telltale sign of her killer’s modus operandi: arsenic poisoning.
But why would anyone want Katrina dead? As AIex and NYPD Detective Mike Chapman begin their investigations, they encounter an establishment whose culture is as curious as the exhibits they display, and whose secrets and rivalries are as ancient. And then, in the depths of the museum, they discover a number of mysterious vaults, whose bones hold the clues to Katrina’s murder. . .
Impeccably plotted, grippingly authentic and brilliantly engrossing, Linda Fairstein’s latest Alex Cooper thriller will delight old and new fans alike.
`Linda Fairstein’s continued rise into the rarified realm of great crime fiction seems unstoppable. She is beginning to defy gravity. The Bone Vault will spin your head and race you away on a blast of originality, chilling real-world detail and turbo-charged writing. If being a nationally acclaimed prosecutor wasn’t enough, Fairstein has become one of America’s most promising and exciting crime novelists’ Patricia Cornwell
A tour de force. Shivers not only the bones but the marrow’ Frances Fyfield
`The Bone Vault is nothing short of brilliant’ Nelson Demille
'Fairstein has the expertise and the experienced, and it shows' Kathy Reichs
'Raw, real and mean. Linda Fairstein is wonderful' Patricia Cornwell

About The Author
Linda Fairstein is is an Assistant District Attorney and head of the Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit. Her involvement with such cases as the Preppy Murder and the Central Park Jogger over the past two decades has gained her the reputation of one of the city's toughest prosecutors. She lives in Manhattan with husband.

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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Killer Heat (Little,Brown, 2008) Jan 08 (Alex Cooper)

Bad Blood (Little,Brown, 2007)

Entombed (Little,Brown, 2005)

The Kills (Little,Brown, 2004)

The Bone Vault (Little,Brown, 2003) Little,Brown Pbk Feb 04

The Deadhouse (Little,Brown, 2001) timewarner Pbk Jan 03 (Alex Cooper)

Cold Hit (Little,Brown, 1999) Warner Pbk Sep 00 (Alex Cooper)

Likely To Die (Little,Brown, 1998) Warner Pbk Feb 99 (Alex Cooper)

Final Jeopardy (Little Brown & Co., 1996) Warner Pbk 1998 (Alex Cooper)

Death Dance Little,Brown Jan 06