Rating: 
Summary: A lot to like, but ...
Review: Lola Dakota is one of the most interesting characters I've encountered in a while. Though she doesn't ever appear in the book in real time (it's her demise that is the catalyst for the action), she gave the story real texture. A respected professor with more than a touch of showgirl, a liberated woman with terrible taste in men, a lover of history and a lover of wealth ... Lola was a complex woman, and it's these complexities that seem to keep sending Alex and Chapman in different directions when trying to figure out the how's and why's of her death. The plot was intricate and involving. I also liked the unexpected and moving glimpse into Chapman's personal life. Unfortunately, I could not care less about Alex and her reporter/lover. Their dialog and their big fight seemed contrived. I think the book would have been just as good (if not better) without that subplot.
Rating: 
Summary: Drags
Review: Note that this tome is 500 pages. It's consequently filled with shopping trips, sending out Christmas gifts to family, parties, etc., adding nothing to the plot development. The first-person narrator talks a lot about her lover but we don't even meet him until page 210 or so, and then their banter and gift exchange takes up a few more chapters. The book could easily have been half as long. Most authors can give us rich character development without dragging us along on a character's inconsequential day-to-day activities. In fact, after learning so much about "Blondie," the main character, and "Mike," the cop, even to the point of including their penchant for watching Jeopardy! every day, I couldn't care less about these very self-absorbed people. And as for plot development, so little progress is made on the case for so long that I wasn't much interested in the plot either.
Rating:
Summary: 4th but not best -- plus I have a Peeve...
Review: So here we have Linda Fairstein's fourth novel about her leading lady Alexandra Cooper. Fairstein in real life (not sure when she does her writing) shares the same job as Cooper in fiction, head of the Sex Crimes Unit of the DA's Office in Manhattan; so the streets of Gotham are once again our setting. And the now familiar supporting cast, especially Alex' foil, detective Mike Chapman and a few others in bit parts, are reprised from the first three stories. A serious boyfriend, NBC news correspondent "Jake", has a fairly large part first coaxing Alex to come "shack up" and later throwing her away over a hot murder lead he won't share with our leading lady. The plot this time is about college professor Lola Dakota who has been stalked by an ex-husband so ruthlessly that the NJ DA's office stages a fake murder to entrap the ex, which ostensibly works, only to have Lola turn up really dead just a few hours later under mysterious circumstances. Thereafter, we get a hundred boring pages about an obscure island near Manhattan which housed prisoners and insane people and smallpox victims, et al, during mostly the 1800's. Various of the college staff are working there as (I guess -- it's not all that clear) historians and archaeologists, and there are rumors of missing diamonds and so on to add to the intrigue. Meanwhile, the repartee between Cooper and Chapman, their relationship often bordering on the amorous in earlier stories, but rather biting in this one, breaks up the history lesson as the murder leads get worked in a chapter here and there. I recommend these stories, but urge the interested to start with any of the first three not this one. To me, this one lacks cohesiveness, lacks charm, and lacks tension: while the suspense does build, the ending to some extent comes too quick and too easy, despite some trumped up personal jeopardy to Cooper. And now to my pet peeve -- I absolutely cannot believe for one second that a top executive in the NYC DA's office runs around on one single case as much or more than the detectives solving crimes. Last I knew, DA's prepare and try cases, grill witnesses including the police, and spend more time with law books and associates in court than roaming the streets hunting for clues. If we weren't told Alex' real job, with brief stops to her office for literally a few minutes here or there on other matters, we would swear she was a police detective working undercover or something. I really have to wonder if Fairstein does this in real life, because if not, why does she insist Cooper run around as though she were a disciple of Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warchawski. I have to put this prejudice off to the side every time I read one of these stories. Lastly, it's not obvious that Fairstein is improving with experience. Whereas you can almost see the strength of Lisa Scottoline's skills improving every couple of books (she's up to 8 now), we see here more a very good entry level followed by little additional development of expertise. I think Fairstein could do better, and if it's a lack of time getting in the way, maybe she really should "quit her day job" (as they say) and write full time. Maybe a spinoff series about a lady detective might be a fine idea as well -- she certainly seems to enjoy the action she insists in portraying. We shall see.
Rating:
Summary: Law Mystery
Review: The author and her protagonist, Alexandra Cooper, have some things in common - same job (head of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office), same looks (blond curls) and I wouldn't be surprised if they both bet on a US television game show. And let's not forget that both have property in Martha's Vineyard. See what I'm getting at? I don't think this series is creative - I think it's real life fictionalised, and in this case, I don't like it. (B)
Rating:
Summary: Did not enjoy it as much as I did her previous works
Review: The book starts with a 'staged murder' of an abused wife in order to fool her dangerous husband. Unfortunately, a few hours after he is arrested, his wife is strangled and thrown into an elevator shaft. The question is: Did the husband have a backup plan to kill his wife? I will not spoil the book, but I was unhappy with the story itself. It is good to familiarize myself with the characters that I left behind in COLD HIT, however, the story is not really about them. It involves an abandoned hospital, located in Roosevelt Island, where very sick immigrants would be taken in order to die. Lola Dakota (the aforementioned wife) has an interest in this place that will be made clear at the end of the book. There are conspiracies, hit-and-runs, and old secrets involved in the mystery of the abandoned hospital. Alexandra Cooper (Fairstein's protagonist) goes through the paces to solve the problem in this book but I think it would have preferred it had this book not been part of the series. I enjoyed Cooper in the other books and I suggest you try them.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Page Turner in Alexandra Cooper Series
Review: This book was a great book to read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In previous books by this author, I thought there were too many other stories going on besides the main case, but in this book, it seemed to be more about the major case at hand. If you like the workings of solving a murder, then you will like the steps that are taken in the latest by Ms. Fairstein. I like the banter between Chapman and Cooper. Story is in the Holiday season and involves a woman that was abused by her husband and the woman is murdered. However, the murder may not be directly related to her husband even though he had put a hit on her. It is a great journey through the evidence trail and one I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: Alex Cooper is a clever but vulnerable heroine
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Great concept, but a let down.
Review: This was my first Linda Fairstein book, but I am not compelled to pick up another. It was almost as though she was writing a book to write a book, not because she had something to say.
The concept itself was very interesting and a lot could have happened with it, but in the end I found the book rather boring and uninteresting. I finished it because I wanted to know "who dun it" but I could have left it unfinished and it wouldn't have bothered me a bit.
The plot was kind of flaky, the subplots could have been left out entirely, and there was just far too much politics and backbiting. Perhaps things really are that was for a female in the legal environment, but books are where we go to *escape* reality.
Finally, the ending even seemed rushed, as though there was a page allotment and too much had been used up already.
Bottom line, I would not recommend this particular book.
Rating:
Summary: An Interesting History Lesson
Review: This was my first Linda Fairstein novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the history of Roosevelt Island presented in the novel, but was bored with the story and characters. I will read her earlier novels and hope for better plots, but will settle for more good history lessons. Because of this novel, I look forward to visiting Roosevelt Island.
Rating:
Summary: What Happened?
Review: What a disappointment! I loved the previous three Alex Cooper mysteries, finding them smart and compelling. I grabbed this next in the series in hardback and settled in for a great read. It read as though she knew her fans were waiting (we were), but she really didn't have the time to carefully develop the story or characters. Unlike her other works, I not only felt no connection to the characters, but none to Alex. Her relationship did not ring true with Jake, either. Bits and pieces, but nothing to hold on to....I'll be back, but please give us what the first three did! A "can't put it down"!!
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