Customer Reviews

The Kills

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper finds a link between an elderly woman murdered and Alex's recent client also murdered. And believe it or not, they have something to do with the CIA and King Farouk of Egypt. While I believe that Farouk existed, I don't believe that McQueen Ransome did, and I don't think it's right to mess with history. And for the author to give her husband Justin Feldman a cameo? The character could've easily just been given a fictional name. After all, having Colin Firth in Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones sequel was terrible. (B)

I was surprised to see Harriet Klauser, the doyen of Amazon book reviews, refer to "The Kills" as character Alexandra Cooper's "third" starring role in a Linda Fairstein novel. Actually, it's her sixth. You're slipping, Harriet,

The Kills by Linda Fairstein is a page-turning suspense that held my attention during the entire book.

I do not know why but i justed hated this book, i could not even finish it so i could not tell you what its about.

The denouement is gripping, we get a tour of parts of New York City and learn fascinating WWII history, but the story is slow-moving and characterization is flat.

I bought this book because Jeffrey Deaver wrote a recommendation on the inside jacket. What was he thinking...or more likely, what was he paid?! This book is nothing like his novels. It's tedious, over-written drivel, with way too much time spent on absolutely nothing!

To be honest, I can't even critique the ending since I've stopped reading the thing after chapter 8.

Yes, I've wasted 20 bucks, but I'm pretty sure I can sell it to the local used bookstore.

As a certified Linda Fairstein fan, I picked up this book without reading a single review. The book jacket copy gives no clue to the story, which is why I was caught by surprise mid-book and actually stopped reading. The book jacket describes the story's opener -- a potentially riveting courtroom drama, very timely in light of the Kobe Bryant case: a young woman claims she was date-raped by a wealthy financier -- the kind of man who seems immune to prosecution. It's a he-said/she-said case, although the man's young son will be a witness for the prosecution if he can be found.

If I had been on the jury,I would not have bought the woman's story of being "forced" to submit to rape and her actions to "save" the little boy seem questionable and possibly illegal. But as Fairstein's character points out,
women of my age rarely sympathize with these victims.

Meanwhile, Alexandra Cooper's cop friends become involved in a murder that initially seems unrelated. Now here's where the book takes a sharp detour that will delight some readers and frustrate others, depending on how you feel about historical characters mingling with fictional characters. And some readers will enjoy the introduction of FBI and CIA intrigue, while others will resist the mixture of spy and courtroom genres.

However, Fairstein is a masterful storyteller, and she seems fascinated by historical events, especially those related to New York City, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of places like the yacht club. So when I picked the book up again, after my shock at finding King Farouk's mistress in a courtroom thriller, I found myself absorbed in the story and learning an amazing amount about Egyptian royalty and double-eagle coins.

However, I felt cheated! Who better than Fairstein to deal with the complexity of rape cases with no witnesses? How does a prosecutor square off against a private attorney? And I wish her adversary had been a better, more experienced lawyer, instead of someone who made basic mistakes in jury selection.

Recommended -- but next time, the book jacket needs to warn us what to expect!

"The Kills," by real life prosecutor Linda Fairstein, has a double meaning. One refers to murders, of which there are quite a few in this book. The other is a geographical location called "Kill Van Kull," which comes from the Dutch word for channel. There are a number of these channels around Manhattan, and a key scene takes place in a "kill."

Alex Cooper, the protagonist of the Fairstein thrillers, is herself a prosecutor. She is handling a case in which an investment banker named Paige Vallis claims that she was assaulted by a man whom she had been dating. The case is complicated by the fact that the gentleman in question, Andrew Tripping, had his little boy, Dulles, in the apartment at the time of the alleged incident. Dulles may turn out to be an important witness at trial.

Coop's best buddy, Mike Chapman, is handling another case. It involves the sad death of an eighty-two-year old former beauty named McQueen Ransome. She was murdered in her Harlem brownstone and her apartment was apparently burglarized. As the book progresses, the Vallis and Ransome cases come together, and subsequent developments convince detectives Mercer Wallace and Mike Chapman that there is more going on here than random acts of violence.

I have always liked Alex Cooper. She is classy and elegant, but also tough and feisty. Although she could have gotten a job in corporate law, she chooses to prosecute those who prey on women, and she has great compassion for the victims whom she tries to help. Alex has a comfortable relationship with Mike and Mercer, who would do anything for her, and she has a long-distance romance with Jake, who has a high-powered career of his own.

The problem with this book, as in Fairstein's last two books, is the plot. There is too much going on, with too many long-winded explanations of how the various incidents in the book converge. The characters are one-dimensional and they get lost in the shuffle of the complicated backstory. By the last third of the book, I was struggling to stay awake, and the climax of the book was anticlimactic.

A good thriller should be tense, compelling, and not merely plot driven, but also character driven. As always, Fairstein has done a fair bit of research, and it shows in the details that she provides on Egyptian history, numismatics, and New York geography. However, these tidbits do not add up to an intriguing story. I would have preferred more emphasis on strong character development and less on complex plot points that require pages and pages of exposition. Ultimately, I found "The Kills" disappointing.

The title of Linda Fairstein's newest Alexandra Cooper novel, THE KILLS, has more than one meaning. To Detective Mike Chapman the kills are homicides: "Hunters used that word to describe the slaughter of their prey, and fighter pilots spoke the same language when referring to the downing of enemy planes --- the unnatural termination of lives." And in this thriller we are told that "once [there] were 'kills' all over Lower Manhattan, a vestige from the Dutch colonization that meant 'channels' or 'creeks' ... [and one of them] was obviously a viaduct to the shipyards along the Jersey shore."

Complementing this bit of New York City's history and the different ways the word 'kills' is used are the events that surround a deadly hunt for "a legal form, signed by the secretary of the treasury more than half a century ago, that monetized one Double Eagle for King Farouk. That one sheet of paper, smuggled out of Egypt ... perhaps after King Farouk was deposed, is necessary if ... together with [a coin found in a dead woman's closet] would make [the] possessor a multimillionaire."

King Farouk's obsession for collecting the most unique items in the world is well documented. But rumors surface about whether or not he left the American Double Eagle coin behind when he was deposed. And is it possible that an American CIA agent whose assignment kept him in Cairo somehow stole the treasure? This agent turns out to be related to one of the women in this labyrinthine tale.

But let's start at the beginning of Fairstein's suspenseful and complex mystery. The case begins with Paige Vallis, a rape victim and hopeful rescuer of a little boy. While Ms. Vallis is adamant in her accusation against Andrew Tripping, the crime solving team of Cooper, Chapman and Mercer Wallace, the series' regulars, knows she is holding back vital information: "It's going to be a tough trial," muses one of the characters as testimony begins and just before Vallis turns up dead.

Unfortunately Vallis is not the only rape victim who is murdered; the other is a seemingly indigent eighty-two-year-old woman who appeared to have been raped and then smothered to death with her own pillow. Chapman takes Coop to the scene in the Harlem apartment because he is outraged and wants answers he hopes she can give him. Alexandra understands his frustration but admits she can't tell him precisely what is behind this kind of assault.

As the investigation moves on, the identity of the Harlem victim is uncovered. She is McQueen "Queenie" Ransome, a fan dancer who didn't always use a fan: "In most of the images, there was nothing between the body of McQueen Ransome and the lens of the camera." Deeper digging is rewarded with the information that Queenie had spent time in Egypt. She knew the king. Could she in some way be connected to the Double Eagle?

The third case is that of Tiffany Gatts. "Statutory rape, [l]ittle Tiffany only just turned sweet sixteen," said Chapman. But more than that, her coat belongs to the dead old woman. What possible connection could there be between these two people? How did Tiffany gain ownership of the coat and what does she know about the murder, if anything?

Every mystery story is a puzzle. The conundrum at the center of THE KILLS is: Are the murders and rapes connected in any way? If some link exists between them, what is it and why did the killer strike now? What secrets did each of the dead women take to her grave and what does Tiffany know? How does the Double Eagle fit into any scenario based on the events in the case?

Linda Fairstein, is the former head of the Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney's Office and was for twenty-five years America's foremost prosecutor of crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence. She traded in her badge for the "blank page" in 1996 when she published her first Alexandra Cooper mystery. THE KILLS is her sixth book in the series and may be her best work to date. Her novels are informed by the twenty-plus years she spent as an ADA and they are infused with a certain snap, crackle and pop so often lacking in police procedurals. Mystery fans can jump right into this series without missing a beat. Enjoy!

(An aside: An ironic and interesting fact --- a current television advertisement is offering gold prints of the American Double Eagle coin in limited lots of five per order. They make no mention of whether or not it is monetized.)

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

Fairsteinï¿s heroine, Alex Cooper, prosecutor in charge of Manhattanï¿s Sex Crimes Unit, returns once again with sidekicks Detective Mike Chapman and Detective Mercer Wallace. With a rape prosecution against defendant Andrew Tripping on her plate, Alex becomes concerned when she feels that the victim, Paige Vallis, a thirty-six-year-old investment banker, hasnï¿t been entirely forthcoming. Frustration becomes Alexï¿s constant companion, as she seems unable to interview Andrewï¿s young son, Dulles, who was present during the alleged rape.

With her own decades of experience in the position held by protagonist Alex, Fairstein enlivens this novel with a sense of realism compounded with both the difficulties and triumphs of the career of a prosecutor, as well as the close relationships formed with the police detectives, a prosecutorï¿s closest allies.

And when Alex begins investigating the murder of a poverty-stricken McQueen Ransome, an elderly woman in Harlem, she learns that McQueen had led quite a fascinating life, dancing around the world and later becoming mistress of the infamous King Farouk of Egypt. And according to Spike Logan, a graduate student interviewing her about her life experiences, Queenie helped herself to some of Faroukï¿s rare collection of valuables when she left his palatial home.

As the crimes against Paige Vallis and McQueen begin to form a connection, Alex encounters some frightening moments of her own, as she is stalked in Manhattan and at her home on Marthaï¿s Vineyard. With clues mounting in the continuous investigations of these two crimes, Alex begins to fear for her life in this craftily constructed novel replete with mystery and suspense.