Amazon.com Review
Book Description
In Linda Fairsteins outstanding new novel, the New York Public Library houses dazzling treasuresand deadly secrets.
When Assistant District Attorney Alex Cooper is summoned to Tina Barrs apartment on Manhattans 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 worlds 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 Manhattans 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.
Featuring a cast of elite, erudite, and downright eccentric characters, and a complex trail of clues that will have you guessing until the final pages, Lethal Legacy is Linda Fairsteins most beguiling thriller yet.
Amazon Exclusive: Harlan Coben Reviews *Lethal Legacy*
Harlan Coben, author of the bestselling Myron Bolitar series, reviews Lethal Legacy for Amazon:
Okay, there are two kinds of people reading this review: those who have already read Linda Fairstein and her terrific series featuring sex crime unit ADA Alexandra Cooper and her sidekick, NYPD Detective Mike Chapman, a man so real to me I once had him help out one of my own fictional characters. And those of you who, uh, haven't.
For those who have, let's make this quick. Lethal Legacy is great. No worries. It is filled with what you already love about her books--the characters, the plot twists, the suspense, the heightened realism that only someone who has truly walked the walked (for those living in a cave, Linda Fairstein was the ADA who helped create the sex crimes unit in Manhattan) can provide.
On top of that, Fairstein had done some wonderful research on the New York Public Library. She weaves the lore of this legendary edifice into a nifty mystery that starts off as a harrowing missing-person-homicide case--but blossoms into something far deeper. I think I dug the parts involving the NYPL most of all.
In short, stop wasting your time reading this and dive in. You already know what to expect.
To those who haven't read Fairstein and thus haven't yet "chilled" with Cooper and Chapman, well, what's the deal? Lethal Legacy is a great place to start--my personal favorite in this New York Times bestselling series. Don't you love finding a new author with a big backlist? Me too.
So here's what you do. See that yellow box up in the right-hand corner? Click it now and see what the fuss is all about. You'll thank me later.
(Photo Credit Beatrice LeGrand)
From Publishers Weekly
At the start of bestseller Fairstein's entertaining 11th legal thriller to feature ADA Alexandra Cooper of Manhattan's Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit (after Killer Heat), Alex persuades librarian Tina Barr to go to the hospital after a burglar posing as a fireman assaults Tina at her East Side home. After Tina disappears, a woman's corpse turns up in Tina's abandoned apartment that looks like Tina's landlady, heiress Minerva Hunt, but in fact is Minerva's Romanian housekeeper. Alex and her sidekick, NYPD detective Mike Chapman, later learn that Tina was once employed by Minerva's father, Jasper Hunt, a rare book and map collector. The investigation leads Alex and her team into the dark depths of the New York Public Library in search of stolen items that certain bibliophiles and antique map enthusiasts would kill for. Full of fun information about the NYPL, the plot builds to a cool resolution that sets up Alex's next adventure involving a disturbing cold case. Author tour. (Jan.)
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