Death Dance (Alexandra Cooper Series #8)

Publishers Weekly

The dramatic talents of Blair Brown, widely displayed on stage, film and television, add some important depth and energy to this generally shrewdly abridged audio version of Fairstein's latest. Brown catches the feisty wisdom of Alexandra Cooper, Manhattan's assistant DA in charge of the sex crimes prosecution unit (a job Fairstein herself had for 25 years before turning to writing full time), and also brings to sharply edged life Cooper's old colleagues, crime scene investigators Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace. Particularly interesting are Brown's takes on denizens of New York's Metropolitan Opera-a manipulative agent, a strange producer and his troubled niece, an ambiguously motivated artistic director-as Cooper and her team investigate the murder of a leading Russian ballerina found dead in one of the Met's cooling units. Other plots (a rape involving an elusive Turkish doctor and an unsolved urban assault case) sometimes seem a bit tacked on and confusing-perhaps a result of the abridgment. But bestseller Fairstein's growing band of enthusiasts should have few complaints-especially if they love opera as much as the law. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 7). (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Best-selling author Fairstein returns with her eighth thriller featuring New York City sex crimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper (after Entombed), and it's a doozy. Loosely based on an actual crime, it follows Alex and longtime sidekicks Mercer Wallace and Mike Chapman as they venture behind the scenes of the Manhattan theater world to investigate the mysterious case of a world-famous dancer who disappeared during a performance at Lincoln Center's Metropolitan Opera House. While navigating the sordid world of the theater community, the trio must wrestle with the chilling mind of a doctor who uses his skills with drugs to trap and attack women in his apartment. This thriller is chock-full of authentic detail, showcasing Fairstein's extensive knowledge of legal and forensic issues and the New York arts and theater scene. Her measured prose has enough plot twists to engage any reader, and her well-rounded characters add depth and believability. Fun, smart, and creepy, with a heroine to match Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta at the top of her game, Fairstein's latest is a real winner. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/05.]-Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet, Hammond, IN Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The real-life 1980 murder of Metropolitan Opera violinist Helen Hagnes inspires an eighth case for ADA Alexandra Cooper, head of New York's Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit. Unless you believe, along with Freud and Fairstein, that it's all about sex, the murder of prima ballerina Natalya Galinova doesn't belong in the Sex Crimes Unit's bailiwick at all. But don't tell that to Alex, whose appetite for trying abusers has been whetted only by the case of Dr. Selim Sengor, a Turkish psychiatric resident who lures female guests to his lair, has sex with them after he's drugged them unconscious and videotapes the festivities for archival purposes. Talya's disappearance in the middle of a Met performance by the Royal Ballet is disturbing enough, especially after her shattered corpse is discovered at the bottom of an airshaft, but there's no evidence of sexual assault. What keeps Alex on the case, apart from her lifelong love of dance and the boundless accommodation of her NYPD colleagues Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, is an unsavory discovery in the home of Talya's rumored lover, powerful Broadway producer Joe Berk: four TV monitors recording the movements of unwitting dancers in changing-rooms and bathrooms. Berk is such a likely suspect, and so good at defending himself against each accusation with threats and counterpunches, that most of the other characters get tossed aside-especially Lucy DeVore, a model whose hope of playing Evelyn Nesbit in a forthcoming Berk production end all too swiftly when she falls from her red velvet swing. There'll be more subplots, brainwaves and nuggets of backstage information en route to a damsel-in-distress finale, but Fairstein, perhaps because she's followingthe outline of an actual case, manages to make the proceedings both muddled and shrill. Don't weep for Alex. She's done better work (Entombed, 2005, etc.) and is sure to do so again.