Cold Hit

Linda Fairstein

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

On a steamy August evening, after an exhausting day in court, Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper is called to a sombre crime scene. Alongside her colleagues, NYPD detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, she views the body - a young woman pulled from the water with her hands and feet obscenely tied to a ladder. But who is she? Her elegant clothes and manicured nails suggest affluent connections, but just how well-connected surprises even Alex.

From a luxurious Fifth Avenue apartment, to famous mid-town auction houses, to the avant garde galleries of Chelsea, Alex, Mike and Mercer hunt for a killer in a very special world where priceless art meets big money in a lethal mix. Determined to crack the case, they know that sometimes they have to rely on luck, like a 'cold hit' which will match DNA from the crime scene with a suspect's DNA profile in the police database - or is it a more sinister kind of 'cold hit' which claimed the victim's life in this case?

Discovering that well-heeled villains are as vicious as ones from the slums, Alex and her police colleagues move ever closer to personal danger as they investigate a case which will have profound effects on all of them.

Illuminating and inspiring, Cold Hit takes us from the paint-chipped offices of cops and DAs to the elegant restaurants of Alex's privileged Upper East Side life. The contrast is stunning, but it's all part of the extraordinary world that Linda Fairstein has brought so vividly to life in this magnificent novel of suspense.

Review by Chrissi (010302) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 8/10
This lady goes from strength to strength. Once again we see Alexandra Cooper, the Assistant District Attorney for the Sex Crimes Unit of Manhattan. Only this time she finds herself with a body being pulled out of the river, but the woman is expensively dressed and tied to a ladder, with no identification.

It is not the easiest of cases, we find all kinds of skullduggery in the genteel art world, with forgery and faked provenance and Alex gets a bit too close to the murderer in this one, only narrowly escaping being shot, although unfortunately Mercer Wallace is hit, which is all rather too real.

I never imagined Art Galleries to inspire the kind of passions that abound in this book, I know that money will drive people to extremes and this is well illustrated here, but this really is the ugly side to beautiful artworks.

Nevertheless, as a subject for murder, it is a gripping plot. I know that sidekicks are not as immune as central characters, but Mercer and Mike are too central to be the victim of homicidal lunatics, but here we see that they can have a little scare, just to remind us that it is a terrible place for the good guys.
Chrissi (1st March 2002)