Customer Reviews

Deadhouse

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I normally do not review books that I do not think deserve 5 stars, you know, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.My sister and brother-in-law think I should review other books, not just ones I love. They say,"that's why people look at the reviews, I could be helping someone else." So...okay, here goes. This is not Ms. Fairstein's best work. I am an avid fan, and I rush out to buy her books as soon as they hit the shelves. This one I could have waited for the paper. I felt like she was telling two or three stories at once wihout doing justice to any of them. Although the information on New York history was interesting, I never connected with the story, didn't know or care about the victims and had the culprit picked out after Alex's (the main character), first interview with him or her.(Even though I didn't like it, I don't want to give it away to someone else!!!!) Anyway, sorry Ms. Fairstein, not my favorite of yours, although I will still run out and buy your next one I'm sure. I have never had will power in a book store, especially for a favorite author.

Note that this tome is 500 pages. It's consequently filled with shopping trips, sending out Christmas gifts to family, parties, etc., adding nothing to the plot development. The first-person narrator talks a lot about her lover but we don't even meet him until page 210 or so, and then their banter and gift exchange takes up a few more chapters. The book could easily have been half as long.

Most authors can give us rich character development without dragging us along on a character's inconsequential day-to-day activities. In fact, after learning so much about "Blondie," the main character, and "Mike," the cop, even to the point of including their penchant for watching Jeopardy! every day, I couldn't care less about these very self-absorbed people.

And as for plot development, so little progress is made on the case for so long that I wasn't much interested in the plot either.

In The Deadhouse, Linda Fairstein not only tells a good tale, she unearths a fascinating corner of New York history. I didn't think anything could distract me in this moment of national tragedy, but this book did. Fairstein captures the complexity of one of America's greatest cities from both a modern and historical perspective. Her writing is brisk, her characters appealing, and the story is terrific. I couldn't put it down. Though a mystery fan, I'm new to the Alex Cooper series. I intend to read all of them now.

In "The Deadhouse," Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman once again team up to solve a homicide. Lola Dakota (an unfortunate choice of name) is the victim. Dakota was a distinguished professor of political science and an acknowledged expert on the history and politics of New York City. Someone strangled Lola and pushed her down an elevator shaft in the apartment building where she lived.

Who had reason to want Lola dead? Certainly her husband, Ivan Kralovic, is a suspect, since he had been abusing and stalking Lola for years. Lola's colleagues at King's College are suspects, since she had clashed with some of them. Alex and Mike interview many of Lola's friends and acquaintances in an effort to find a motive for murder.

Complicating the case is the fact that Lola was working on a historical project, an architectural dig on Roosevelt Island (formerly called Blackwells Island), in Manhattan. It seems that many years ago, the island was used to keep New York's undesirables away from the rest of the city's population. At one time or another, prisoners, people who were destitute and insane, or victims of contagious diseases such as smallpox, were confined to institutions on this island. Lola and her colleagues are using the tools of urban archaeology to uncover some of the island's secrets. Could this work somehow be connected to Lola's death?

I like the characters of Alex Cooper and Mike Chapman. Alex is beautiful, smart, sophisticated and dedicated to her job. Mike is irreverent, politically incorrect and a great detective. Although Mike and Alex are seeing other people, it is obvious that they care for one another deeply, and their attraction to one another is a recurring theme in this series.

Another positive aspect of this book is the background information about Roosevelt Island that Fairstein provides. Fairstein obviously researched the island's history thoroughly and I found this aspect of the novel fascinating.

Unfortunately, the mystery of Lola's murder is handled very badly. The suspects are not compelling characters and the solution to the mystery is incoherent and implausible. The ending of the novel falls flat and is extremely unsatisfying. I am tired of killers who endlessly explain why they committed murder to their captives. This device is used once again here and it detracts from the ending, which is devoid of excitement and suspense. As much as I like the the main characters of Alex and Mike, I give "The Deadhouse" low marks as a mystery and suspense novel.

With L. Fairstein's 25 years as head of the New York district attorney's Sex Crime Unit, I expected a more intelligent, facetious, gritty, in-depth, realistic story. Deadhouse is shallow and uninteresting. Flat. Bad writing.

Here again we find that everybody who is anybody to the main character is the bestest of the best in his/her field of work and personal life. Her parents are wealthy...carribean home... Marth's Vineyard...Alex doesn't go to a grocery store, she has her groceries delivered. The dialogue between her and her detective friend, Mike are dull, dim (he calls her Blondie, euck). Mike himself is outragiously unnecessarily rude and crude to people.

Also here we got the main character, the head of the sex crime unit, walking the streets of NY alone in the dead of night WITHOUT ANY means of self defense such as mace or pepper spray, stun gun, pistol, retractable steel baton, cell phone. Instead of taking a self-defense class she takes ballet. Garbage.

So here we have Linda Fairstein's fourth novel about her leading lady Alexandra Cooper. Fairstein in real life (not sure when she does her writing) shares the same job as Cooper in fiction, head of the Sex Crimes Unit of the DA's Office in Manhattan; so the streets of Gotham are once again our setting. And the now familiar supporting cast, especially Alex' foil, detective Mike Chapman and a few others in bit parts, are reprised from the first three stories. A serious boyfriend, NBC news correspondent "Jake", has a fairly large part first coaxing Alex to come "shack up" and later throwing her away over a hot murder lead he won't share with our leading lady.

The plot this time is about college professor Lola Dakota who has been stalked by an ex-husband so ruthlessly that the NJ DA's office stages a fake murder to entrap the ex, which ostensibly works, only to have Lola turn up really dead just a few hours later under mysterious circumstances. Thereafter, we get a hundred boring pages about an obscure island near Manhattan which housed prisoners and insane people and smallpox victims, et al, during mostly the 1800's. Various of the college staff are working there as (I guess -- it's not all that clear) historians and archaeologists, and there are rumors of missing diamonds and so on to add to the intrigue. Meanwhile, the repartee between Cooper and Chapman, their relationship often bordering on the amorous in earlier stories, but rather biting in this one, breaks up the history lesson as the murder leads get worked in a chapter here and there.

I recommend these stories, but urge the interested to start with any of the first three not this one. To me, this one lacks cohesiveness, lacks charm, and lacks tension: while the suspense does build, the ending to some extent comes too quick and too easy, despite some trumped up personal jeopardy to Cooper.

And now to my pet peeve -- I absolutely cannot believe for one second that a top executive in the NYC DA's office runs around on one single case as much or more than the detectives solving crimes. Last I knew, DA's prepare and try cases, grill witnesses including the police, and spend more time with law books and associates in court than roaming the streets hunting for clues. If we weren't told Alex' real job, with brief stops to her office for literally a few minutes here or there on other matters, we would swear she was a police detective working undercover or something. I really have to wonder if Fairstein does this in real life, because if not, why does she insist Cooper run around as though she were a disciple of Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warchawski. I have to put this prejudice off to the side every time I read one of these stories.

Lastly, it's not obvious that Fairstein is improving with experience. Whereas you can almost see the strength of Lisa Scottoline's skills improving every couple of books (she's up to 8 now), we see here more a very good entry level followed by little additional development of expertise. I think Fairstein could do better, and if it's a lack of time getting in the way, maybe she really should "quit her day job" (as they say) and write full time. Maybe a spinoff series about a lady detective might be a fine idea as well -- she certainly seems to enjoy the action she insists in portraying. We shall see.

Having already read The Kills, Entombed, Likely To Die and Cold Hit and finding all of them (except Likely) to be terrific thrillers, I thought the odds of this entry being another keeper were pretty good. But I was wrong. The Deadhouse just ambles along at a very dreary pace - the book is over 500 pages long, but only about a quarter of that is spent on the mystery itself. There is far too much emphasis on the other aspects of Alex Cooper's career. While I enjoyed these glimpses into other cases in previous novels, it just goes overboard here. Nearly every chapter has a new case, and it just detracts from the central mystery. Also, we spend far too much time in Alex's personal life. When you spend a twenty-page chapter describing boring every-day life that has nothing to do with the main story, I just end up skimming.

My other major beef is with the relationship between Cooper and Chapman. I don't think I know one single educated, seemingly intelligent woman who would put up with the way Chapman speaks to Cooper. I also don't know many educated, intelligent men who would speak to a woman the way Chapman does. It's obvious Fairstein doesn't know how to write male characters very well. This franchise could lose Chapman completely and I wouldn't be too upset at all.

All in all, The Deadhouse is a 200-page mystery expanded to over 500 pages due to pointless filler. The history of that island was indeed very intriguing - too bad it wasn't in a better book.

hmmmm have just finished it - started out promisingly, got a bit slow in the middle then went on to finish somewhat implausibly! having read all of fairstein's alex cooper series, i think there is something missing - perhaps it's heart. a strong female lead is great but alex just doesn't have enough frailties (that we're privvy to) to make her human and appealing. the strong woman character is (thank goodness) nothing new in this genre but she seems more of an imitation of tempe or kay.

anyway, not a bad holiday read, but once i skimmed the descriptive passages of the island and its history there wasn't too much left to the actual plot.

Did Linda Fairstein all of a sudden realize she had written the required number of pages for her latest book? The ending certainly feels like that. Totally unsatisfying, with lots of open ends. A start for the next book? Sorry - I really liked Ms Fairstein's books, and the characters in those books, but - I won't buy the next book. I really felt like I wasted my money this time.

This was my first Linda Fairstein novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the history of Roosevelt Island presented in the novel, but was bored with the story and characters. I will read her earlier novels and hope for better plots, but will settle for more good history lessons. Because of this novel, I look forward to visiting Roosevelt Island.