Review: Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein

The latest in the Alexandra Cooper series, Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein, is a good one. I definitely enjoyed the characters as much as the mystery story. Last fall I read the previous novel in the series, Killer Heat (my review), and I enjoyed this latest book more.

Summary: When Assistant District Attorney Alex Cooper is summoned to Tina Barr’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, she finds a neighbor convinced that the young woman was assaulted. But the terrified victim, a conservator of rare books and maps, refuses to cooperate with investigators. Then another woman is found murdered in that same apartment with an extremely valuable book, believed to have been stolen. As Alex pursues the murderer, she is drawn into the strange and privileged world of the Hunt family, major benefactors of the New York Public Library and passionate rare book collectors.

Eventually Alex connects their internal family rivalries to a priceless edition of Alice in Wonderland, which also contains the world’s oldest map. Would one of the well-bred Hunts be willing to kill for the treasures? The search for the answer takes Alex and her team on a breathtaking chase from Manhattan’s grandest apartments to the secret tunnels and chambers of the New York Public Library, and finally to a nineteenth-century underground vault. There, in the pitch-black darkness, Alex comes face-to-face with the killer who values money more than life.

I still recommend starting at the beginning of this series because it's such a good series. The characters are rich, the stories intense and interesting, and Ms. Fairstein keeps you guessing throughout. Start with Final Jeopardy. You want to know why you didn't read her books before.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Killer Heat by Linda Fairstein

I have been a fan of Linda Fairstein and her Alexandra Cooper series for a long time. I don't know when I started reading her books, but I've read all of them and thoroughly enjoy each one. I think this is one of the best mystery series out there - great characters and relationships, interesting and unique situations, along with great mysteries that are both realistic and interesting.

The latest in the series is Killer Heat. From Publishers Weekly: At the start of bestseller Fairstein's nail-biting 10th legal thriller to feature alter ego Alex Cooper (after 2006's Bad Blood), the Manhattan ADA takes a hit from a cigar at the urging of her longtime police ally, Mike Chapman—to cover the stench of a badly decomposed female body at a crime scene in an abandoned building near the Staten Island ferry. The victim later proves to be the first of a number of women in uniform targeted by the murderer, who may have military ties in his past. The trail leads to a notorious bar catering to underage drinkers, before a chance observation by a civilian shifts the inquiry dramatically. Meanwhile, Cooper is preparing to try Floyd Warren, a rapist whose first trial three decades earlier ended in a hung jury. Fairstein, whose professional résumé includes groundbreaking work in the field of sex crimes prosecution, manages to both entertain and educate, as Cooper struggles with the evidentiary challenges of the Warren rape case and with tracking a vicious serial killer.

This was a good addition to the series, but not the best. The mystery kept me intrigued but not glued to the book as it has in the past. And this one is definitely a 'series book' as you don't get any back story on the characters, nor are the relationships explored very much.

Any good mystery has at it's core a great plot and this book does that very well. However, the great mysteries, whether in a series or not, has good character and relationship development. In my opinion the previous Alex Cooper novels do both plot and character well, while Hell Bent left me wanting a bit more.

I am rating this as four stars because it's an interesting plot that keeps you wanting to know more, but it's not five stars like I've rated the last few in the series due to the lack of further character development.

If you've not read any of Linda Fairstein's novels and are a mystery series fan, I do highly recommend them! Start with Final Jeopardy. I promise you will enjoy the series. If you are already a fan of this series, I do recommend reading it. It's a good addition to the series, just not a great one.

Rating: 4/5 stars