Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein

I recently mentioned that my reading for June had picked up nicely. I am edging my way to completing my first challenge in 2009 by reading 100 books. Seeing that last year I read just over 100 during the whole year, meeting this challenge in the first 6 months of 2009 reflects a great reading year.

Now not all is rosey when it comes to reading because among the 100 books there are some great titles (Megan Whalen-Turner's Attolia Series; Kelley Armstrong's Bitten; Nalini Singh's work; etc) but you also have titles that were not so successful (Kay Hooper's CJ's Fate; Michele Bradsley's I'm the Vampire, That's why; Kinsella's Remember Me) and then you have those that disappoint you to the point that you wonder what happened to the author while writing the piece. Especially when the author has consistenetly been a winner in your book.

That was what happened with Linda Fairstien's new book Lethal Legacy. If you follow my blog you will know Fairstien has been a great source of enjoyment for me but Killer Heat really didn't give me the rush her work usually does and this last one... I could not believe how disappointed I was.

The story follows our trio of cohorts Alex Cooper, Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace as they investigate a murder that appears to be related to certain historical books from the NY Public Library. Now I was thinking that I would be loving this one because the whole bibliophile thing and being a big fan of libraries, NY being a weird variety of the ones we visit in our local town, but I felt lost from the get go.

Like for Killer Heat, there appeared to be way to much history thrown at the reader with out any real reason. I just can't see these people sitting around talking about the history of the library in so much detail. I love the history lesson but feed it to me seamlessly through the story. At one point I completely lost track of what these characters were after. Didn't really know what the crime was. Then Alex would mention the victim and I would then recall what was the end game.

The ending itself was very anticlimactic. The book flatlined early on and didn't give a sign of life again. After two disappointments I'm really going to have to rethink Fairstein's newer work. Unfortunately, she will no longer be an autobuy for me but I will still keep an eye on her since I know she has the potential to be great!

Grade: D
Format: Audiobook

Killer Heat by Linda Fairstein

As many of you know Fairstein is a must read for me. I cannot get enough of Alex Cooper, Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace but this one... I was devastated while reading.

The story opens up with Alex arriving at the scene of a murder that took place in an abandoned Maritime building off the coast of Staten Island. The girl has been tortured and brutally stabbed and by the stench she has been there for a while. When the bodies of two more young women show up they suspect a serial killer is on the loose. One that has an affinity to women in uniforms.

The connection between the girls seem to be the bars of Jimmy and Kiernan Dylan, a father/son business that have had a brush with the law for serving alcohol to underage patrons. When Kieran is arrested, it flushes out an unlikely source that points to another more viable candidate.

And the chase begins. That chase takes them back to the string of islands that surround Manhattan and when a storm comes rolling in our favorite team is stranded on one of the islands with the latest victim and only survivor of the maniac, but has the Serial Killer escaped or is he hiding behind the storm to finish the job he started?

Besides the main story we also follow Alex as she tries to balance her job with her new romantic interest, French man Luc Rouget (sp??) and we see her wrap up on the conviction of serial rapist Floyd Warren who raped Kerry Hastings over 30 years ago. Justice might be slow but it always catches up with you. While in court and while dealing with the murders of these women, the members of the Latin Princes gang are bent on hurting Alex and making her regret putting their gang leader behind bars.

Okay here is the thing with this installment of the Alex Cooper series. I only LISTEN to these books. They are Audiobook reads for me. Not because I love them less than my romances, but because I have a terrible imagination and the spoken word will put the pressure on the narrator to bring to life my favorite crime fighting team, Barbara Rosenblat has read all the Alex Cooper books I have listened to. Except this one. I actually considered NOT listening to it. I had such a hard time getting into the story because the voices were not of Alex, Mike and Mercer
Think of Harry Potter with someone else playing Harry. Think of The Outlander without Davina Porter giving that beautiful Scottish accent to Jamie! Yeah, I took it hard!

What else went wrong with this one? The History Channel was transported to the pages of the book. Fairstein always includes a good dose of NY history in her stories, it's part of the charm. Mike knows EVERYTHING about NY. He is a walking Wikipedia. But in this one, it went a bit overboard. Mike tends to throw out these historical facts as he moves along the crime but in this one, it seemed as if he pauses and regurgitates his knowledge. Not just him but Alex throws out her share of historical facts. Too much info all at once feels like I'm watching the History channel. Also, Mike was very out of character. He seemed to dismiss and, in a way, belittled Alex. At times there was so little respect for her knowledge and for the things that they had gone through, I had to attribute it to the narrator but in reality, it was the writing. It seemed Linda took our Mike Chapman and gave him a dose of Dr. Jekyll / Mr Hyde potion, because honestly, at times I didn't even recognize Mike.

Regardless of these flaws the book still earned a decent grade because when the Storm rolled in I was glued to my seat in anticipation of what would happen to our trio of crime fighters.

Grade: B-
Format: Audiobook

Death Dance by Linda Fairstein

We are back visiting our favorite trio of investigators. Linda Fairstein has created a group of characters that make you feel as if you are coming home every time you visit them in her stories.
For those of you that are not familiar with Alex Cooper and her sidekicks here is the run down:
Alex Cooper is from the DAs office. In her past you can find tragedy when only hours before getting married her fiancee was killed in a car accident. She has stayed emotionally unavailable for a long time.
Mercer Wallace is a detective and is married to Vicki they have a baby boy that is a year old.
And then we have Mike Chapman who suffered a loss of his own in the last book. His girlfriend, who had won a battle with cancer died in a freak skiing accident. It had taken him awhile to finally accept his feeling for Val when he lost her. Mike grew up the son a cop and 48 hours after his father retired he did of a heart attack. This took Mike from academia to the police academy. Now he is back on duty trying to recuperate from his loss.

The main case our trio is working on is the murder of a dancer at the Metropolitan Opera. She is found dead on a roof ledge and the list of suspects just gets longer by the hour. Seems production is not running smoothly at the Met and everyone wants a piece of the pie. When we finally discover who dun it, it doesn't come as a complete surprise but the explanation is well setup to have us saying "Innnteresting"

There are two other cases that add a little humph to the story. A serial rapist that kills his victims at the park and leaves no DNA evidence finally gets nabbed because he chose to attack a jogger running her dog. When the dog bites the assailant, Alex has the pooch's teeth swabbed for DNA.

The other case really doesn't get resolved and I was curious as to how that was going to pan out. So Fairstein leaves a loose end that will keep us on the look out for their next tale. A Turkish medical resident drugs and rapes two Canadian tourist who were staying at his house. Seems he had a thing for rapping unconscious woman and recording them. Alex gets a judge we had met previously in another of her cases, who is a total prick! He lets the perp out with out bail and within 24 hours he had fled the country and gone back to Turkey. This does not stop him from trying to clear his name by threatening Alex and sending her a charming incendiary letter that burns off some of Alex's hair. Yeah, that's going to work!

I discovered Linda Fairstein last year and I have yet to be disappointed in any of her books. The trio works like a well oiled machine but each have their own quirks. The friendships they share make the books warm and charming, regardless of how many dead bodies pop up!

Grade: B+
Format: Audiobook