Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein

Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein
Buy Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: General Fiction
Reviewer: Kerry King
Summary: Once more we are delivered into the capable hands of Manhattan's Assistant District Attorney, Alexandra Cooper and once more you can rest assured that Linda Fairstein has given us a first class crime-thriller read.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 384	Date: January 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 978-1408700792
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We are once again on the wonderfully familiar turf of the Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan, Alexandra Cooper and her two 'sidekicks' the wry-humoured Detective Mike Chapman and the tirelessly brilliant Detective Mercer Wallace.

According to a neighbour, the justifiably terrified Tina Barr, a shy librarian and expert on rare and valuable books, has been assaulted by a masked stranger in her own apartment. Oddly, Tina does not want to co-operate with our trio, even in her own best interests and provides Alex and the team of investigators with the scantest of detail and information before unexpectedly vanishing.

When another body is discovered in the same apartment alongside a very valuable book, the search is on to find Tina, taking Alex, Chapman and Wallace into a world of wealthy, mysterious book collectors, culminating in the hidden rooms and passages beneath the New York Public Library. Who is the frosty Minerva Hunt and why would anyone want to kill her housekeeper? Why would Tina Barr disappear?

I really can't tell you anything else about the plot other than to say Fairstein has apparently upped her game once more. Coop, Detective Chapman and Detective Wallace are my personal crime-fighting Three Musketeers and I was thrilled to start my journey into the pages of Lethal Legacy, knowing how much I was going to enjoy the ride.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, as I have said in other reviews of Fairstein's novels here at Bookbag, she has got a good thing going. A talented, intelligent crime writer does not come along every day. Each of the Alex Cooper tales is imaginative, innovative and exciting in its own way. I got weary of Cornwell some time ago and to compare the two would be unfair, since, in my humble opinion, Fairstein long ago stepped up into her own league within this genre.

I have said it before and I will say it again: I love these characters and the way they rub along, tit-for-tatting and meshing so well as a team. If you are wondering why there were not five stars awarded for Lethal Legacy I will explain – it was over too quickly! I was left wanting more and not in the 'one slice of chocolate cake' sense (i.e. another slice and you will feel sick). It was literally too short. But that's really a small thing. Tiny. If I could give it four and three quarter stars, I would. It's a great story.

As you probably know by now, for me, there is a delicious anticipation surrounding Fairstein's novels: aside from the promise of an excellent, clever, superbly executed heart-racer of a plot, I am forever hopeful (probably like so many other of her readers) that Coop and Chapman will get it together and who knows, maybe one day they will? I can't, of course, tell you if they have managed to get any closer to my goal for them in Lethal Legacy. You'll have to buy it and see for yourself.

Lastly, we at Bookbag are very grateful to the publishers, Little Brown, for sending this copy to us for review.

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