The victims are human and sympathetic to the reader. The beginning of the novel is brisk, poignant and exposes the various facets of sex crimes. The novel starts with such a crime: two young Canadian tourists (female) accuse a hospital psychiatric resident (male) of rape committed while they were drugged (unbeknownst to them) and unconscious, the sort of rape called “drug-facilitated sexual assault” in lawyerese. “So to take this-the professional life I’ve had over the last 30 years and to mix it with the great pleasure of writing-is something I never dreamed I’d actually be able to accomplish.” 2 Most of Alexandra’s cases, so far, have “involved women meeting nice guys who had other things in mind”. In an interview on her publisher’s web site, Fairstein explains that her career and her life’s mission are one in the same: “I think so much more is possible in terms of what we are able to give women who have been victims of violence and how they can triumph in a courtroom,” Fairstein reflects. Linda Fairstein has thus been able to combine her love of writing and her career. She is a tall (five foot ten) assistant DA, prosecutor for the Manhattan DA’s office, in charge of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit for more than ten years. Alexandra Cooper, her main protagonist, is her alter ego. In 1996, she published her first Alexandra Cooper novel. She is still a writer and a lecturer in defence of victims of sex crimes, and also an activist: she does pro bono work for women and children who are victims of violence and do not have access to the system. She was/is the legal expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence. In 1993, she published a book on rape, Sexual Violence: Our War against Rape (New York, William Morrow & Co.), a landmark on the subject. She was prosecutor in several highly publicized cases.
Linda Fairstein became chief of the Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan in 1976, a post she occupied for 25 years. The sex crime unit was founded two years later and several legal changes were made that facilitated the prosecution of rape cases, at a time when the Women’s Liberation Movement was giving this issue a high priority.
After receiving a degree in English from Vassar College and a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1972, she joined the office of the Manhattan District Attorney and became assistant DA. Linda Fairstein, like so many crime fiction writers, had an interesting career before turning into a full-time writer in 2002.
I have not read the previous or following books but judging from criticism though, it seems that this volume is fairly representative of her work. New York: Scribner & London: Little Brown, 2006ĭeath Dance is Linda Fairstein’s eighth novel in the Alexandra Cooper series.
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