Bad Blood

I don’t understand why Alex is involved in this case at all. It seems that the author wanted to write a more niche type of book when she created Alex as a sex-crimes prosecutor, but quickly bored of that and wants to turn Alex into a homicide prosecutor instead. The thread linking this murder to a rape case is so slim that it merits only a single mention. After that it’s just headlong action, piecing together of clues, bonding, romance and a bit of girl talk. Not a bad book, but that aspect is irritating. I would like it if Fairstein returned to the sex-crime angle. I know that my emotion ratchets up when she paints those scenes of Alex arguing her case with some backwards, misogynist fool. I feel for her more then than when she is show more a common-place homicide prosecutor.

But homicide is what we have and it’s set in a very interesting locale; New York’s underground. A whole mesmerizing and dangerous city in itself, Fairstein does a very good job portraying the atmosphere; dark, closed-in, damp, running with water and highly dangerous. Not just the physicality of the place, but the people who inhabit that world. A group called the sandhogs built virtually all of the infrastructure below ground. For generations, these dangerous jobs are almost handed down from father to son. Families are proud of this vocation and guard against outsiders who just don’t understand the calling. Women underground are verboten and blood feuds span the generations.

Basically, that’s what the title refers to, although there is a side meaning as well. Two families, the Quillians and the Hasetts are bitter enemies over some death that was supposed to be the fault of a rival family member. Who knows if it’s really true, but someone wanted to get to Brendan Quillian to take revenge. Since Brendan eluded the call of the underground, they have to use less direct methods. The other meaning of Bad Blood is that some trace evidence found pointed to one sibling, but it was because of a bone marrow donation from another sibling that threw out the bad blood identification. I still don’t really buy the science that explained that, but as a device it was at least new.

The interpersonal relationships and the vignettes showing them are very calming and reassuring to me. Exactly like they were in Nancy Drew novels which I’ve compared to Alex Cooper novels before. They’re not smarmy portrayals and seem very real to me. I can’t have them myself, so it’s nice to read about them. show less

This is a three-year-old mystery novel in Fairstein's Alexandra Cooper series, but it's a new series to me. I don't know how I missed these novels except that like the old saying, "So many books, so little time." Cooper is a D.A. in New York City and this book involves treachery among the sandhogs who are digging Tunnel #3 to carry water throughout the city. The old tunnels are ancient and in danger of leaking. Think of New York City with no water at all and you can see why this is important.

Sandhogs of course are the guys who dig the tunnels all over the world. One reason for the name dates from the building of the Brooklyn Bridge when caissons had to be sunk deep under the river and the major danger was being pulled down into the sand show more to their death. Not many people are willing to do such work for obvious reasons but intrepid Irish sandhogs are a brotherhood who continue that job through generations.

Cooper's case involves a member of one of those families. At one point she descends into the shaft to Tunnel #3 after an explosion, scared to death but persevering even though someone tries to kill her. A cold case turns out to be a part of the story as well. As Cooper was in serious danger through most of the story, I was on tenterhooks reading the book. (What are tenterhooks anyway?)

I enjoyed Bad Blood enough that I will look for more of the Cooper series. I like the courtroom drama and the involved plot with characters who are quite believable and fallibly human. I recommend this book. show less

Bad Blood is the 9th book in the Alexandra Cooper, assistant district attorney in New York City, series. Alex Cooper is about as ready as she can be in her recent case. The daughter of a successful businessman, Amanda Quillian, was strangled in her upscale townhouse, and her husband, Brendan, is on trial for her murder. He has hired one of the most prominent defense attorneys in the area, and his attorney is not about to let anything slip by him without a fight.

An explosion in a New York water tunnel shakes the city barely a week into the trial, killing three men. Police rush in to determine whether the explosion was an accident or intentional. After the Twin Towers bombing, any explosion or threat to the city is taken even more show more seriously than ever before. The threat of terrorism is very real. Pulled into the investigation by a strange twist that may or may not be related to the defendant she has on trial, Alex is soon traveling over 600 feet into the earth and into parts of New York she did not know existed. Nothing is quite what it seems and the deeper she digs, the more dangerous things become. Joined by her sidekicks, homicide Detective Mike Chapman and Detective Mercer Wallace, Alex is sure she can uncover the truth.

One of my favorite features in Linda Fairstein’s is how the author takes a piece of New York history and weaves it into her modern day murder thriller. In Bad Blood, she takes readers underground, into New York City’s water system and subway tubes sharing their history and also offering a glimpse into the dangerous work of the sandhogs, the people who work in the tunnels.

Bad Blood is one of those fast-paced stay up late novels. Linda Fairstein has succeeded in writing another great legal thriller that is pure entertainment and fun. show less

I like Alexandra and her partner the Jeopardy quiz loving cop, Mike, but this book wasn't as good as the others that I've read. While prosecuting a philandering husband for murdering his rich wife, the city of NY suffers an explosion in an underground water supply system. It's all tied up a little too neatly.

Decent page turner. Extra points for real NYC history and Jeopardy references.

Very well done; but, like the others I've read the court room aspects are more interesting than the "thriller" detective parts. In order to escape the court room so she can get into the detection parts she has the defendant engage in a completely unmotivated act when he essentially has won his case.

Generally this bifurcated role that Cooper plays, prosecutor/pursuer, although commercially successful, becomes increasingly difficult to accept. It's formulaic to an extreme. It would be interesting to see if she could resolve the first half of the book simply in the context of the trial, rather than in the depths of the subway under city hall. But, of course, that was not her intent to begin with; the trial was merely a launching pad for show more the formulaic elements that followed. show less

We all like a courtroom drama: combine it with a cold case and a killer on the run, and you up the ante in the enjoyment stakes.

Rich, beautiful public prosecutor Alex Cooper is charging a millionaire businessman with ordering a hit on his wife. Her close friend and investigator is the unbearably irritating Detective Mike Chapman who, one assumes, is intended to be the comic relief.

The investigation leads the reader into the fascinating complexities of Manhattan’s water supply and the sub caste of extraordinary men known as ‘sandhogs’ who have for many generations, tunneled deep, deep underground. Interesting, but too-long winded.