The Deadhouse (Alexandra Cooper Mysteries)
Smart, sexy, Manhattan assistant DA Alexandra Cooper--hero of Linda  Fairstein'sincreasingly popular series--is taking her latest murder case very personally. Lola Dakota, abused wife and  brilliant university professor, wouldn't cooperate when Cooper wanted to charge  her ex-husband with assault. So when she's murdered, he's the logical suspect--except that he had been arrested just before the murder. So Alex needs another  suspect.Unable to protect Lola alive, Alex is determined to find the killer and bring  him to justice. All she has to go on is a scrap of paper in the murdered woman's  pocket with the words "The Deadhouse" on it, along with a series of numbers.  Deciphering the clue leads Alex and Mike Chapman, her favorite homicide cop, to  an abandoned gothic hospital on New York's Roosevelt Island, where smallpox  victims went to die a century ago. Because of its history, the Deadhouse held a  special attraction for Lola and for several of her university colleagues; and,  as it turns out, almost all these deftly drawn minor characters had a reason to  want Lola dead. Illuminating their personalities and motives gives Fairstein an  opportunity to skewer the academic infighting that goes on at an elite Ivy  League school.The author's background as head of the New York district attorney's Sex Crime  Unit is just one of the many assets she brings to her fast-paced, intricately  plotted thrillers. What makes this one a standout is the wealth of historical  detail about 19th-century New York, which adds an extra dimension of  verisimilitude to an engrossing, atmospheric, and suspenseful read.--Jane  Adams--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.