- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Scribner (Sep 25 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0684849046
- ISBN-13: 978-0684849041
- Product Dimensions: 24.5 x 16.6 x 3.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 730 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,205,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
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
From Publishers Weekly
When archeologist Lola Dakota is found dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft in her apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side, assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper takes on one of her darkest cases yet in this compelling mystery from bestseller Fairstein (Final Jeopardy). Alexandra, aided by homicide detective Mike Chapman, must sift through the testimonies of Dakota's close-mouthed colleagues at small, experimental King's College. Despite bitter December weather, the professor was engaged in an archaeological dig on the city's Roosevelt Island for clues about the criminals and mental patients shipped there a hundred years ago and left to die. Cooper, who had been working with Dakota to apprehend her abusive husband, now reaches out to Lola's resistant family and legal counsel in New Jersey, where she has been hiding out. And what of Charlotte Voight, a young woman who disappeared several months ago? The city is ablaze with holiday lights and cheer, Mike is acting peculiarly, team member Mercer Wallace injured in Final Jeopardy rejoins them late in the game, and Alex and new love Jake, a news correspondent, might be breaking up. Fairstein weaves present and past woes to good effect, while her focus on Roosevelt Island will intrigue New Yorkers who know little about its shameful former uses. A somewhat abrupt resolution, as well as a few loose strands, will leave the reader eager for a later date with the D.A. (Oct. 2)Forecast: Several factors will recommend this book to a broad audience: Manhattan D.A. Fairstein bears the mark of authenticity; all three previous titles in the series were bestsellers; and Linda Fairstein's Final Jeopardy was an ABC-TV Movie of the Week in April. A six-city author tour and two floor displays will further boost sales.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
It was hard not to smile as I watched Lola Dakota die. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It was hard not to smile as I watched Lola Dakota die. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Alex Cooper is a clever but vulnerable heroine,
By
This review is from: The Deadhouse (Mass Market Paperback)
This book wastes no time in setting out some very juicy bait. Shortly after faking her own death as part of a sting operation planned by law enforcement types on the Jersey side of the river, political science professor Lola Dakota is found doing an excellent job of not faking her death --- having been squished by an elevator in her Manhattan apartment building after first having been strangled. By the time you finish the first chapter, the hook is set, and author Fairstein is reeling you in like a trout. Don't fight it.Cooper and Chapman are equals in intellect, but whenever Cooper gets knocked to the ground, Chapman is there to pick her up and dust her off. It would have been far more satisfying if just once Cooper hauled off and smacked somebody. Given some of the lowlifes Ms. Fairstein has sent up the river, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were occasions when she felt like bypassing the legal system altogether and just opening up a jumbo can o' whoop-ass. I can't think of a better way to relieve the kind of professional stress that must surely be a part of Ms. Fairstein's life than letting her fictional alter ego dish out a little pay-back. But then that wouldn't really be in character for Cooper. In this team, she supplies the glitz, and Chapman, the grit. In the end it's not that Cooper is a thinly-drawn character, it's that she's a subtle string quartet competing for the reader's attention with a supporting cast that's as hard to ignore as an under-rehearsed marching band --- and just as much fun. So even if she is quiet and cultured, even if she has a weekend place on Martha's Vineyard and a network news dude for a boyfriend, Cooper gets the job done, and in a fine and entertaining fashion.
1.0 out of 5 stars
silly & boring,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Deadhouse (Mass Market Paperback)
Having never read anything by this author I picked up this book after seeing her interviewed on TV. I love good mysteries, especially the British police porcedurals, and thought maybe Fairstein might be somewhat like those. I thoroughly disliked Alex Cooper, finding her shallow and pretentious. The constant toing and froing amongst her & Mike was tedious and embarrassing(the Blondie thing has got to go) and the story just dragged on and on, and I really just lost interest. What a waster of paper!
5.0 out of 5 stars
New York history + mystery,
By
This review is from: The Deadhouse (Hardcover)
I love a good mystery...and when it is immersed with bits of history of New York City, I love it even more. Alex Cooper is now involved in the murder of a King's College professor, Lola Dakota (you gotta love that name!). A bit of paper with numbers on Lola's dead body sends Alex and Mike Chapman on a quest to Roosevelt Island, off the shore of Manhattan. We learn about the history of the island, including hospitals for the insane and small pox victims. Lola's colleagues become suspect for various reasons. Just another "can't put it down" book.
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