Select one of the keywords
Killer Heat    by Linda Fairstein Amazon.com order for
Killer Heat
by Linda Fairstein
Order:  USA  Can
Anchor, 2009 (2008)
Hardcover, Paperback, Audio, e-Book

Read an Excerpt

* * *   Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth

Apart from being a highly acclaimed writer, author Linda Fairstein 'is one of America's foremost legal experts on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, running the Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan for more than two decades.' So we can count on her novel Killer Heat being true to life. Horrifying as that sounds.

Manhattan D.A. Alexandra Cooper feels the heat in the midst of a Manhattan summer as well as in her personal life. Her main heartthrob lives in Paris and is wooing her from afar. But her professional life is about to heat up even more and with more severe consequences. A young woman's body has been discovered – nude, wrapped in a green blanket, and with marks of bondage and torture. Almost before forensics has worked the case, another body is found in the same condition and in the same type and color blanket. Serial killer?

Seems so. Another body is discovered in the same condition. Then a young girl disappears and the rush is on to find her before she, too, is killed. The search is painstaking but the attention to detail is incredible. Action in this disturbing but highly readable novel moves at a fast clip. The rapport between Alex and her cohorts is wonderful to read about and share. Intriguing characters abound. A lot of the action takes place on the islands in close proximity to Manhattan. I never knew the history of that area and find it absolutely fascinating. The fact that history is one of the character's hobbies brings a whole different aspect to the story and plays a good part of the final solution.

Final solution! Wow! The dénouement is worth the whole story. Feeling that the bulk of the novel is drawn from true life makes one wonder how any of us survive to adulthood, let alone old age. There are some very nasty people out there. And Fairstein brings them into your home. Killer Heat is a hard-to-put-down book that I highly recommend.

Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons.

Find more Mystery books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews