Double entendre is a skill that Linda Fairstein excels in her Alexandra Cooper Series. Here in the 6th installment, THE KILLS, the title refers to the name that NYC homicide detectives commonly call murders and The Kills are a warren of tributaries between the small islands off the toe of Manhattan Island.
Prosecutor Alex Cooper isn’t thrilled with the way her date rape case begins.
“Murder. You should have charged the defendant with murder.”
“He didn’t kill anyone, Your Honor.” Not yet. Not that I could prove.
“Juries like murder, Ms Cooper. You should know that better than I do.” Harlan Moffett read the indictment a second time as court officers herded sixty prospective jurors into the small courtroom.
But her job in the Sex Crime Unit is never easy. And this case is particularly difficult. There are more lawyers involved than witnesses on her list to call. The defendant stands accused of brutally raping 36 year-old Paige Vallis in front of his 10 year old son whom she hasn’t been able to interview. And the judge is predisposed to dismiss the rape case, while leaving the lesser charges of child abuse and endangering a child to stand. After all, the victim stayed succumbing to the charming Andrew Tripping, didn’t she?
Meanwhile, Mike Chapman responds to a call in Harlem – an octogenarian has been murdered in her apartment, posed seductively in death. She is MacQueen Randsome, a Harlem Renaissance dancer who was also the mistress of Farouk, the King of Egypt during the height of her fame and beauty.
The two cases collide in a strange way and become a very intricate case for Alex and her two detective friends, Wallace Mercer and Mike Chapman, especially after one of Cooper’s main witnesses is killed. Fairstein skillfully moves the reader through a warren of subplots as the kills move among the islands of New York Sound: the too cozy relationship of Tripping, his defense attorney, and his son’s Guardian Ad Litem, mercenaries, assumed identities, stolen Egyptian treasures, stalkers, a boy’s jacket, and a hurricane. Linda Fairstein fans like me will enjoy this twisting tale to the very last word.