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"Exciting and smoothly combines a legal thriller with a police procedural"
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted December 17, 2003

Manhattan Sex Crimes Prosecutor Alexandra Cooper tires to persuade a jury to convict counter terrorism security consultant Andrew Tripping of raping thirty something Paige Wallis. The problem with the case is that the alleged victim has no injuries or bruises so it becomes a "He said she said" scenario Read more...

"Well-constructed Suspenseful Read"
Reviewed by Sheri Melnick
Posted January 22, 2004

Fairstein's heroine, Alex Cooper, prosecutor in charge of Manhattan's Sex Crimes Unit, returns once again with sidekicks Detective Mike Chapman and Detective Mercer Wallace. With a rape prosecution against defendant Andrew Tripping on her plate, Alex becomes concerned when she feels that the victim, Paige Vallis, a thirty-six-year-old investment Read more...

Summary

From New York Times bestselling author and former top prosecutor Linda Fairstein comes an electrifying new thriller rich with the riveting behind-the-scenes authenticity that only she can offer.... It's going to be a tough trial. Manhattan sex-crimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper's case, involving an attack on investment banker Paige Vallis, would be difficult to prove even without the latest development -- it seems that Paige has something to hide. Most of her story is clear. She'd had dinner with New York consultant Andrew Tripping three times before the March evening when she accepted his invitation to accompany him to his apartment. But what occurred that night? Why didn't she leave the apartment when he started to act strangely? What about Tripping's little boy, Dulles? What happened to the child that fateful evening? And who is the strange man whose appearance in the courtroom seems to terrify Paige? While Alex's police detective friend Mercer Wallace helps her learn more of the sad details behind the increasingly puzzling rape case, colleague Mike Chapman is uptown in a decaying Harlem brownstone where eighty-two-year-old McQueen Ransome has been murdered, her apartment ransacked. What could this impoverished, elderly woman have possessed that could have inspired such violence? Photographs on the wall suggest that "Queenie" was once a beautiful and voluptuous young woman who traveled to faraway places. Could there be a clue to her murder in her exotic background? Her murder will be only the first. Others follow, as the tragic strands of the Paige Vallis and McQueen Ransome cases begin to converge in a poignant alliance of two women from very different worlds. Faced with formidable personal and professional choices, Alex must learn the old lesson that appearances can deceive, even as she heads for a showdown in which her wits and her courage will be tested as never before. With its winning combination of courtroom drama, historical detail, and the intriguing lore of a rare object whose fabled provenance provides a glistening thread through the story, The Kills is powerful, stylish writing from a hugely appealing crime-writing star.