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She's tall, she's blonde, and she's back. Manhattan Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper, the
scourge of Big Apple sex offenders, returns in THE DEADHOUSE, the fourth in the very
popular series of mystery novels written by real-life New York sex crimes DA Linda
Fairstein.
THE DEADHOUSE 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.
Ms. Fairstein's real-life record for prosecuting sex crimes has generated plenty of ink in
its own right, and the author's experience and expertise in the nuts and bolts of putting
Manhattan's bottom-feeders behind bars is in ample evidence in the pages of THE DEADHOUSE.
The detail and apparent realism that informs the depiction of the business of being a sex
crimes DA offsets dialogue that sometimes lacks street credibility. It's kind of like
expecting Andy Sipowicz and getting Martha Stewart. But, hey, this is an Alexandra Cooper
mystery, not "NYPD Blue." It's an eminently forgivable flaw.
But as a newcomer to the Alexandra Cooper series, I was surprised at what at first
appeared to be a rather anemic heroine, especially when compared to her sidekick, NYPD
homicide detective Mike Chapman. Chapman's a feisty, wisecracking, in-your-face foil to
Cooper's uptown girl professional cool. As buddy pairings go, this one tends to favor
Chapman: he gets all the good lines. And too often --- at least to my taste as a fan of
Stephanie Plum, Kinsey Milhone, Carlotta Carlyle, and V. I. Warshawski --- Cooper comes
off as just a little too dependent on Chapman.
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.
So entertaining, in fact, that I finished the book a few nights ago during a violent
windstorm that knocked out electrical power all over town. I spent four hours getting to
the whodunit part with a flashlight balanced on my shoulder, aimed at the pages. The wind
howled around the house, the windows rattled and creaked, and I sat there alone in the
living room, hoping the batteries would hold out until the last page. Frankly, I can't
think of better conditions for reading a good mystery. And that night, as luck would have
it, I had one in hand.
--- Reviewed by Bob Rhubart
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