Bad Blood
by Linda Fairstein
Published by Scribner
Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann
New York City Assistant District Attorney Alexandra "Coop" Cooper returns along with her aides, police detectives Mercer Wallace and Mile Chapman, this time investigating a seemingly simple case of a murdered wife. The case is in trial when the accused, Brendan Quillian, grabs a guard's gun, and escapes.
Coop, Mercer and Miles find that this case is connected to the death by strangulation of a young girl 20 or so years earlier, and to an explosion in the water tunnels under New York City that killed three "sandhogs," (tunnel construction workers). One of the murdered men is the estranged brother of the accused, Duke Quillian.
Brendan Quillian had left behind his working-class family, and married into a wealthy property development firm. He was injured as a child, losing an eye, and was always defended and looked after by his older brother, Duke. He hated the tunnels and the life of the sandhogs, and was able to get out of the life. Coop is threatened, shot at, and has to crawl into abandoned subway stations and investigate in tunnels under construction that are 60 stories underground.
Fairstein is a legal expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, and was the chief prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Sex Crimes Unit for twenty-five years.
Laced with statistics and facts, Linda Fairstein's books are gripping reads.
Armchair Interviews says: This is the ninth Alexandra Cooper novel.
Author's Web site: http://www.lindafairstein.com