Likely to Die (Alexandra Cooper Series #2) »

Hailed by Patricia Cornwell as "one of the most promising forces in crime fiction," former head of the Manhattan District Attorney's Sex Crimes Unit Linda Fairstein has hooked readers with her intense mystery series featuring assistant D.A. -- and Fairstein's alter ego -- Alex Cooper.

July 1997

Linda Fairstein's second novel, Likely to Die, returns to the gritty, chilling world of the popular heroine of Final Jeopardy, Alexandra Cooper. Cooper's job description matches Fairstein's own: Manhattan's top sex-crimes prosecutor. And, as Fairstein notes in the acknowledgments to Likely to Die, "every crime in this book is based on an actual event."

Renowned neurosurgeon Gemma Dogen is designated "likely to die" by the police after she is found barely breathing in her blood-soaked office at a major New York medical center, having been sexually assaulted, stabbed, and left for dead. And, in fact, it is too late to save her; she doesn't survive much longer. Because of the nature of the crime, NYPD homicide detective Mike Chapman calls Alex in to help with the investigation. As she begins to assemble a task force, Alex learns that security at the hospital is lax at best, making it possible for Dogen to have been murdered by virtually anyone who passed through Mid-Manhattan's doors. Compounding the problem are the hundreds of homeless people living in a maze of tunnels underneath the hospital who freely roam its corridors.

Hoping to narrow the field of suspects, Alex starts to sift through the details of Gemma Dogen's life. But as Alex frantically tries to piece together this deadly puzzle, she finds herself in a heart-pounding race against time when the murderer targets her as "likely to die."

NY Daily News

A first-rate mystery novel.