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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780671019549
ISBN number: 0671019546
Label: Pocket
Manufacturer: Pocket
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 528
Printing Date: January 01, 2003
Publishing house: Pocket
Release Date: December 31, 2002
Sale Popularity Level: 214616
Studio: Pocket
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper is back -- in this page-turning New York Times bestseller from legendary Manhattan sex-crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein.
On Roosevelt Island, a strip of land in New York City's East River, stands an abandoned 19th century smallpox asylum, 'The Deadhouse,' where the afflicted were shipped off to die. It's a gruesome bit of history perhaps best forgotten. But for Alexandra Cooper, it may be the key to a shocking murder that cuts deeper than the arctic cold front gripping the city. A respected university professor is dead -- strangled and dumped in an elevator shaft. And while the school does damage control for anxious parents, Cooper and her close detective friend Mike Chapman scramble for answers, fueled by the most daunting discovery: a piece of paper, found on the lifeless body of Professor Lola Dakota, that reads The Deadhouse....
Amazon.com Review:
Smart, sexy, Manhattan assistant DA Alexandra Cooper--hero of Linda Fairstein's increasingly popular series--is taking her latest murder case very personally. Lola Dakota, abused wife and brilliant university professor, wouldn't cooperate when Cooper wanted to charge her ex-husband with assault. So when she's murdered, he's the logical suspect--except that he had been arrested just before the murder. So Alex needs another suspect.
Unable to protect Lola alive, Alex is determined to find the killer and bring him to justice. All she has to go on is a scrap of paper in the murdered woman's pocket with the words 'The Deadhouse' on it, along with a series of numbers. Deciphering the clue leads Alex and Mike Chapman, her favorite homicide cop, to an abandoned gothic hospital on New York's Roosevelt Island, where smallpox victims went to die a century ago. Because of its history, the Deadhouse held a special attraction for Lola and for several of her university colleagues; and, as it turns out, almost all these deftly drawn minor characters had a reason to want Lola dead. Illuminating their personalities and motives gives Fairstein an opportunity to skewer the academic infighting that goes on at an elite Ivy League school.
The author's background as head of the New York district attorney's Sex Crime Unit is just one of the many assets she brings to her fast-paced, intricately plotted thrillers. What makes this one a standout is the wealth of historical detail about 19th-century New York, which adds an extra dimension of verisimilitude to an engrossing, atmospheric, and suspenseful read. --Jane Adams
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Rated by buyers 
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I picked this book up at a second hand shop and thought it sounded intriguing. Boy, how wrong I was. Very tediously written, anti-climactic ending, virtually no dramatic tension whatsoever and Alex Cooper, our heroine, has the best of all possible worlds - her father is a very, very wealthy surgeon; her parents have a Caribbean island home; she owns a pad on Martha's Vineyard; she lives in a chi-chi Manhattan apartment; her boyfriend is an NBC reporter/anchorman (??????); she is 5'10, blue-eyed and impossibly slender; she is Head of the Sex Crimes Unit in the Manhattan DA's office by her early 30's etc. Need I go on?
Rated by buyers 
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I discovered Linda Fairstein's talent quite by accident and am now reading the entire Alexandra Cooper series. After reading my very first novel (which took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), I was amazed at the historical information and fascinating things I learned. I was ready for more!
The Deadhouse is an excellent example of Fairstein's attention to detail with surprises around each corner. Her research is impeccable. I was so intrigued with the historical information on Blackwell's Island that I found myself searching on my own for more. What fascinating people had links to the island! Billie Holiday even served time there for prostitution! Wikipedia has an 1853 drawing of the prison and a photograph of the ruins of the smallpox hospital as well as current photos of other parts of the island.
Fairstein's character development is equally marvelous, allowing the reader to truly get to know each of the characters complete with their flaws and idiosyncrasies. No shallow characters for Fairstein!
The Deadhouse is a rich book that builds in suspense so that I found myself carrying it with me as I approached the end -- I needed to know what would happen next! In the final chapter, as Alexandra stepped from icy rock to icy rock at the tip of the island, in an endeavor to elude her captor, I was on the edge of my chair. I could almost feel the icy water as it swirled around her. Unfortunately, the novel ended too quickly. I still wanted more.
In reading the series, I find that my biggest challenge is trying to do it slowly. I have to remind myself that faster I devour each novel, the more quickly the series will be completed. I can only hope that Fairstein continues to produce such elegant mysteries! I will continue to want more!
Rated by buyers -
This was my very first Linda Fairstein novel and I enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed the New York atmosphere and the story surrounding Roosevelt Island. The mystery was solid and unpredictable. I look forward to reading other books my Linda Fairstein and I highly recommend spending time with Alexandra Cooper, the main heroine - she's one of my new favorites!
Rated by buyers -
Ms. Fairstein not only writes a mesmerizing mystery, but enlightens her readers to boot! If you love New York City and a good mystery story, you get both with her books. I learned many interesting facts about Roosevelt Island, such that I would love to visit there.
Rated by buyers -
"The Deadhouse," the fourth installment in the Alexandra Cooper mystery series, focuses on the murder of Lola Dakota, a college professor. Dakota was part of a research project that involved a building called The Deadhouse, which supposedly held buried treasure and now possible the key to her murder.
"The Deadhouse" was much better than "Cold Hit." I think the problem that I am having with Fairstein right now is that she is too formulaic and her "cases" are semi-mundane. Fairstein has selected cases that are relatively simple. There is no sizzle and intrigue to her mysteries, which is what makes a mystery! Fairstein just needs to punch things up a bit and not approach her fiction with a clinical view that a prosecutor might.
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