Likely to Die (Alexandra Cooper Series #2), Alexandra Cooper Series, Linda Fairstein, Book

Synopsis

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."

People

Step aside, girls. Here comes Manhattan sex creimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper in a red Escada suit, trailing a cloud of Chanel No. 5....Fairstein gives her sleek — and single — D.A. a whopping whodunit....There are plenty of suspects to keep Alex clicking along in her Manolo Blahnik heels...and sizzling sexual tension between Alex and NYPD detective Mike Chapman.

More Reviews and Recommendations

Biography

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.

More About the Author

Customer Reviews

Reader Rating:
Ratings: 2Reviews: 2

Likely to Die (Alexandra Cooper Series #2)by Anonymous

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November 05, 2001: This was a very suspenseful book with great characters. Many twists and turns kept it interesting and it was difficult to solve who killed Gemma.

Likely to Die (Alexandra Cooper Series #2)by Anonymous

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April 01, 2000: I enjoyed reading 'Likely to Die' very much. I could not put it down. It kept me in suspense thru out the who book.

Fact File

Name:
Linda Fairstein

Current Home:
New York, New York and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:
May 05, 1947

Place of Birth:
Mount Vernon, New York

Education:
B.A., Vassar College, 1969; J.D., University of Virginia School of Law, 1972

Awards:
Named "Woman of the Year" by New Woman and Glamour magazines, 1993; Nero Award for The Deadhouse, 2001

* Linda Fairstein's official web site

Biography

Linda Fairstein is passionate about putting sex offenders behind bars and had done just that many times, both in real life -- as one of New York City's premier sex crimes prosecutors -- and in her fiction, with her popular series of Alex Cooper mysteries.

Born and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, Fairstein attended Vassar College, where she majored in English literature. She went on to receive a law degree from the prestigious University of Virginia School of Law in 1972. In November of that year, Fairstein was assigned to the staff of the New York County District Attorney's office and was soon heading up the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit, where she developed a reputation as one of the toughest prosecutors in the office's history. Fairstein spent the next two decades dedicating herself to nailing the worst of the city's sexual offenders, working on such high-profile cases as the Preppy Murder and the Central Park Jogger.

In 1993, Fairstein was named "Woman of the Year" by New Woman and Glamour magazines. A year later, her groundbreaking nonfiction book, Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape, was named a Notable Book by The New York Times.

Fairstein's first foray into fiction writing was 1994's Final Jeopardy, which introduced the tough, savvy assistant D.A. Alexandra "Alex" Cooper -- a character close to the author's own identity -- who was well received by fans and critics. As Publishers Weekly noted, Alex's "greatest appeal lies in the warmth of her friendships, the humanness of her mistakes and her unswerving devotion to protecting the next female from harm."

Since then, Fairstein has continued to chronicle Alex Cooper's crime-solving adventures in a string of bestsellers that draws on the author's thoroughgoing knowledge of the legal system and longtime affection for the Big Apple. A believer in public service, Fairstein sits on the board of directors of several nonprofit groups, among them the National Center for Victims of Crime, Phoenix House Foundation, and New York Women's Agenda, and has also served on President Clinton's Violence Against Women Advisory Council, New York Women's Agenda Domestic Violence Committee, the American College of Trial Lawyers, The Women's Forum, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.

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. "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."

Good to Know

Fairstein is married to Justin Feldman, a lawyer who helped run Robert F. Kennedy's 1964 United States Senate campaign.

Fairstein has admitted to having her eye on the post of United States Attorney General, and in fact interviewed for that position in 1993.

Cold Hit made President Clinton's highly-publicized vacation reading list in 1999.

Feature Interview

In the winter of 2005, Linda Fairstein took some time to talk with us about some of her favorite books, authors, and interests.

What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer?
When I was thirteen years old, I read Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, and that fascinating saga of Scarlett O'Hara against the background of the Civil War kept me spellbound because of the storytelling. I loved the rich texture of the plot, the vivid scenes depicted, and the fact that it was so long and dense in its unraveling. I had written short stories long before that, but it was reading that novel -- the only one ever written by Mitchell -- which made me think I would love to try to tell stories that would engage a reader in the way Mitchell caught my imagination.

What are your favorite books, and what makes them special to you?

One of my favorite novels is John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. I think it is a brilliantly plotted, taut spy thriller, which I first read when we were in the middle of the Cold War and had very different political enemies. LeCarre's characterizations were wonderful, and his themes of personal trust and betrayal played out against world politics were haunting.

Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca is one of my favorite mysteries. What an incredible conceit -- to tell the entire story without ever giving us the protagonist's name. And the twists and turns were so carefully laid in that I never saw them coming. It's a very classy classic.

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is such a powerful story. I love the intense emotion of it -- again the themes of personal betrayal -- and when I first read it as a high school student I was so thoroughly absorbed by the foreign atmosphere and mores that it helped shape my vision of European and Russian cultures.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were an early and strong influence. I delighted in the wisdom of Holmes, and his ability to use his skills to deduce clues and solve crimes. I go back to his stories often and they never fail to delight me.

Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of the Bizarre and Arabesque was another tremendous influence in my development as a devotee of the crime fiction that I would one day start to write. I remember the nightmares I had after reading stories like "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Telltale Heart," and marveled at the creative genius of this dark storyteller.

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is a modern masterpiece -- and oddly again -- the only novel written by this writer. Not only is the prose elegant, but the lessons about the human conscience and the power of the search for justice have always appealed to my combined interests in law and literature.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is probably Rebecca West's most distinguished non-fiction work. In her description of her travels through Eastern Europe in the 1930's, there are stunning observations about history and the people of the region that foreshadow the horrors of the coming world war.

When I'm not reading crime fiction, I love to read historical biography. It fascinates me to learn about the lives of great leaders -- family backgrounds, triumphs and tragedies that shaped their visions, personal choices made along the way. Two of my favorites are Joseph Lash's Franklin and Eleanor and William Manchester's wonderful series about Winston Churchill called The Last Lion.

Poetry has always been a great joy for me to read, and has been since earliest childhood, when I demanded some verses by Robert Louis Stevenson before going to sleep. So I'd always add a volume -- from Shakespeare's sonnets to my college-age obsession with Edna St. Vincent Millay's works to Philip Larkin -- and throw in just about any of the classics from Blake to Keats.

What are some of your favorite films, and what makes them unforgettable to you?
My most favorite film is Hitchcock's Notorious, starring Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. First of all, it's Hitchcock -- so the story is a wonderfully devious mix of foreign intrigue and mystery. The actors are fantastic, the story is taut and riveting, down to the very last scene, and it's got a wonderful romance in the middle of all spy-jinks.

Rebecca is one of the few novels to which I've ever been attached that was made, in my opinion, into a fabulous movie. I love a lot of murder mysteries from the �40s and �50s --their atmosphere, their noir quality, the style of the acting -- so Dial "M" for Murder, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity -- classics that hold up time after time.

I adore good comedy -- just about anything Woody Allen has done, and especially movies like Manhattan and Annie Hall, which are both brilliant.

I could watch Gone With the Wind every few months and still need a box of tissues by my side, and swoon again over Clark Gable.

Give me a classic movie channel and a bowl of popcorn -- if I can't be reading a good book -- and I'm happy for days on end.

What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like to listen to when you're writing?
I guess I give away my age -- and my college days in the 1960s -- to say that my favorite kind of music -- in the house, in my car, on the new iPod -- is Motown. I love the great girl groups and the Temptations, and would go anywhere to see and hear Bette Midler, but my all time favorite is Smokey Robinson. Next come the Stones and the Beatles, and maybe a few of the great songs of The Band. For calmer times, I listen to a lot of James Taylor and Carly Simon -- both also staples of Martha's Vineyard, so it's a wonderful connection through the music. I also like Dr. John a lot.

When I'm writing, I can't listen to anything at all that has lyrics -- it's a total distraction and I find myself singing along in the background (not a voice any of you would want to hear). So one of my other long-time passions is ballet, which I studied for several decades and attend frequently. I have CDs of the scores of all my favorite ballets, and find the music both soothing and inspirational when I sit down to write.

What are your favorite kinds of books to give -- and get -- as gifts?
Books are always are my list of gifts to give to loved ones, and to receive. In giving, I try to match the interests of my friends or family to new books. I just sent my stepdaughter the new biography of Margot Fonteyn, because we both share a passion for the ballet. One of the really perks of being a writer is that I spend an inordinate amount of time in bookstores -- on line and real time -- and in libraries, so I try to stay on top of everything new and upcoming. It's great fun to introduce friends to crime writers they may not have read -- Harlan Coben or Michael Connelly, Denise Hamilton and Laura Lippman -- it's an interesting and exciting community of authors.

There are very few ways to go wrong with giving me a book as a gift. I love mystery and crime (although you'll have a hard time finding something I haven't already bought myself, pre-ordering on B&N when I know the publication date is near), classics (I majored in English literature in college and hope to read all of Trollope someday), or any interesting biography or historical nonfiction. Books make the best gifts in the world.

Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
I like to start my writing in the morning, with my second cup of coffee, and write for as many hours a day as I can. My favorite place to write is on Martha's Vineyard, where I have a wonderful little cottage away from the house that's like my sanctuary. All my reference works and research, just my writing music, a wonderful view of water and wildflowers -- and always something related to the book I'm writing on my desk. When I wrote Entombed, my inspiration was a several-hundred year old brick taken from the actual house in which Edgar Allan Poe lived in lower Manhattan when the place was demolished a few years back.

Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?
I took an unusual path to get to the place I am today. Writing was my first love, from adolescence on. I also had an interest in public service, and decided on a career in the law, putting off my dream to write fiction. Quite accidentally, my career as a young prosecutor took some dramatic directions when my field of specialty -- sexual assault and domestic violence -- became much more "high profile" than they were when I began my career in the law.

What was unusual about my first book -- the nonfiction Sexual Violence -- is that the publishers came to me and asked me to write it. So I never had to deal with rejection slips or the difficulty of being published. Because that book was well-received and reviewed, I had the courage to set about trying what I had always wanted to do, which was write crime novels. So my advice is both to write what you know -- an old adage but one which carries a lot of weight -- and the other is never to give up your dreams. It may take years, but it's quite wonderful when you can make them come true.

What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
Write. Don't ever stop writing. You've got to do it every day, and if you don't like the process of writing, don't hope to be discovered. And read. It's so important to be "in" books all the time -- seeing how other writers use words and ideas. There's nothing better for developing your craft than writing and reading.

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In the summer of 2004, we asked authors featured in Meet the Writers to give us a list of their all-time favorite summer reads, and tell us what makes them just right for the season. Here's what Linda Fairstein had to say:

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell -- One of my earliest recollections of a great summer read was the first time I picked up Gone with the Wind, when I was about fifteen years old. I love thick, rich sagas for summer reading because it's about the only point in the year many of us get a big chunk of time in which to read, and I like grand storytelling with compelling characters who come alive.

Here was the chance to get lost in a great story -- everything from the historical background of the Civil War and Reconstruction, to the race and class structures of the old South, to the turbulent relationship between Scarlett and Rhett. This is the kind of book that made me long to be a writer -- a complete spellbinder with something for everyone, and classic old-fashioned storytelling.

Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk -- I think I was sixteen when I spent a hot summer with this book. Has there ever been a teenage girl who hasn't responded to Wouk's heartbreaking story -- really a period piece that is so evocative of America in the 40's and 50's - about a first love and dreams of career on the stage? It's become a classic and very 'campy' to reread as an adult -- this time it made me smile and laugh, thinking back on how it once made me practicallly weep for Marjorie's personal and professional predicament.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy -- By college, where I majored in literature, I loved to spend part of the summer with one of the literary classics -- something in which I could bury myself for long days at the beach, without the responsibility of homework or term papers to interrupt. War and Peace is such a brilliant literary masterpiece. If you're ever going to attempt it, try it as a summer vacation read -- it will entertain, educate and enrich you -- and you'll impress everyone around you with your intellectual fortitude.

Plum Island by Nelson DeMille -- Nobody writes thrillers like DeMille, and since I love my books to be dense and richly plotted, he's a winner every time. I can't say too much about the plot because I don't want to give it away, but everything from the setting to the danger and intrigue made this a summer favorite for me. And DeMille has done that time after time, so if it's not this tale, pack one of his others when you head to the beach.

Social Crimes by Jane Stanton Hitchcock -- One of the smartest, wittiest authors I know managed to turn her insider's knowledge of New York society's inner circle into a devilish tale of betrayal and revenge and murder. The book is great fun and the dialogue is dead-on. Set in Manhattan and Southampton, it's perfect around the pool, and wickedly plotted to keep you guessing until the very end. This Hitchcock is much sexier than the moviemaker.

Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier -- I can remember the first time I read this book, visiting at a friend's house at the ocean on a stormy summer weekend in my 20's. I still consider it one of the most brilliant novels of suspense I've ever read -- the haunting setting, the terrified young bride (and the ingenious device of DuMaurier's, never to name her), and the mysterious Maxin de Winter. I'm pretty sure I devoured it in one late-night sitting, and couldn't get to sleep after that, nor did I go anywhere near the water the next day. Then get the DVD -- this is one of the few books I've ever loved that was perfectly recreated for the screen.

Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion. Back in a serious mode, and ready for summertime literary fiction, there is no writer I enjoy more than Joan Didion. She's a riveting storyteller, and her prose is spare, smart and stunning. I still have my original hardcover copy of this -- sand in the binding -- and I've reread it many times, getting more out of it each time I do. She is a great chronicler of current affairs in her nonfiction, and one of the finest novelists alive. This book helps prove it.

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope -- I'm determined to work my way through Trollope. So almost every summer for the past fifteen years, I pick one of these 19th century novels from his vast body of work and transport myself to the mid-Victorian English countryside. This is my favorite -- so far -- with it's delicious theft of the family jewels and the wonderful social commentary that disguishes itself within the tale of love and betrayal.

Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carr� -- I read this book the year it was published, 1964, on my summer vacation between high school and college. Since then, I've probably re-read it a dozen times. I think it's the best suspense novel of the second half of the 20th century -- it's so meticulously crafted that there is not a useless word in the entire book. The characterizations are perfectly drawn, the atmosphere captures the essence of the Cold War world in which we were living then, and the story is enviably well-plotted. Start here and stick with le Carr� and the rest of Smiley's people -- it will put a chill in your long, hot summer.

Now, I have to admit that if I were packing my bags for a week in the guesthouse at a friend's summer beach cottage, the luggage would be weighed down by the latest crime novels. I love classics and historical biography and literary fiction, but nothing helps me escape like a fast-paced, intricately plotted thriller or procedural. So this summer, between laps in the pool, give me the latest by Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, Lisa Scottoline, Richard North Patterson, P. D. James, Patricia Cornwell... they just can't write them fast enough for me.

From the Publisher

The real-life work of sex-crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein brought "riveting authenticity" (Vanity Fair) to her bestselling debut novel, Final Jeopardy. Now Fairstein's fictional counterpart -- smart and savvy assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper -- returns in "[a] Grisham-esque page turner" (Time) that puts Alex in the line of fire.

New York City's oldest and largest medical center is the scene of a ghastly attack: top neurosurgeon Gemma Dogen is found in her blood-soaked office, where she has been sexually assaulted, stabbed, and designated by the cops as a "likely to die." By the time Alex has plunged into the case, it's a high-profile, media-infested murder investigation with a growing list of suspects from among those who roam the hospital's labyrinthine halls. As Alex's passion to find the killer intensifies, she discovers this hospital is not a place of healing but of deadly peril -- and that she is the next target for lethal violence.

A high-style thriller that sweeps from Manhattan to London to Martha's Vineyard, Likely to Die is an exhilarating tale from a justice system insider and provocative novelist.

People

Step aside, girls. Here comes Manhattan sex creimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper in a red Escada suit, trailing a cloud of Chanel No. 5....Fairstein gives her sleek — and single — D.A. a whopping whodunit....There are plenty of suspects to keep Alex clicking along in her Manolo Blahnik heels...and sizzling sexual tension between Alex and NYPD detective Mike Chapman.

Hilma Wolitzer - New York Daily News

A first-rate mystery novel by someone who writes about what she knows and truly knows about what she writes.

Vanity Fair

A murderous tale of intrigue.

NY Daily News

A first-rate mystery novel.

Library Journal

A prominent woman neurosurgeon is sexually assaulted and stabbed in her own mid-Manhattan medical center office. Heroine Alexandra Cooper, who heads the Manhattan D.A.'s sex crimes unit, and her team of homicide detectives banter comically to cheer themselves as they winnow through witnesses, including transients who swarm the tunnels beneath the hospital and roam hospital corridors, snatching lab coats and trays of food. In her second Alex Cooper novel, Fairstein calls upon her expertise as a Manhattan assistant D.A. to conjure up a world so real, its brittle police babble and mounting suspense make the pages crackle. Although there is little art to the language, it is crystal-clear, and deft descriptions abound.

The precise coverage of Alex's daily rounds has a documentary feel that slows the narrative, as do the intrusive explanations of criminal procedures. But classy Alex and her sidekicks, Mercer and Mike, a refreshing, if cartoonish, 'equal opportunity offender,' all denizens in their beloved New York, are treats. -- Molly Gorman, San Marino, California

Library Journal

A prominent woman neurosurgeon is sexually assaulted and stabbed in her own mid-Manhattan medical center office. Heroine Alexandra Cooper, who heads the Manhattan D.A.'s sex crimes unit, and her team of homicide detectives banter comically to cheer themselves as they winnow through witnesses, including transients who swarm the tunnels beneath the hospital and roam hospital corridors, snatching lab coats and trays of food. In her second Alex Cooper novel, Fairstein calls upon her expertise as a Manhattan assistant D.A. to conjure up a world so real, its brittle police babble and mounting suspense make the pages crackle. Although there is little art to the language, it is crystal-clear, and deft descriptions abound.

The precise coverage of Alex's daily rounds has a documentary feel that slows the narrative, as do the intrusive explanations of criminal procedures. But classy Alex and her sidekicks, Mercer and Mike, a refreshing, if cartoonish, 'equal opportunity offender,' all denizens in their beloved New York, are treats. -- Molly Gorman, San Marino, California

NY Daily News

A first-rate mystery novel.

Kirkus Reviews

Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper, in charge of New York County's Sex Crimes Unit, was intimately involved in her first case (Final Jeopardy, 1996)—the victim was a friend of hers, killed perhaps in error for her—but this time the case is just a case: the brutal assault and slashing of Dr. Gemma Dogen, head of neurosurgery at the behemoth Mid-Manhattan Medical Center. The killing looks like the work of one of the numberless nutcases confined to its wards (or resident in the labyrinth of tunnels that connect its buildings), but Alex thinks the motive is more insidious, based on the long list of enemies Gemma Dogen's professional practice had brought her. While she's waiting for the very unscientific brainstorm that will finger the perp, she has time (lacking a personal interest in the case) for a didactic sex-crimes lecture to an appreciative audience, a posh transatlantic crime conference, a million self-infatuated reflections about her lingerie and microwave menus, and some very funny tales of the rabbi who molests cleaning ladies and the enema freak who does a number on the cop Alex has placed under the covers of a Mid-Manhattan bed. Only the throwaway anecdotes about colorful lesser sex offenders pack any punch; not even Alex's romance with a wonderful new man whose late wife died under Dr. Dogen's knife carries the slightest conviction.

It's hard to remember a second novel as keenly disappointing as this one. For forensics addicts only.

What People Are Saying

Patricia Cornwell
An authoritative and scary view from one who has battled evil and locked it away. Fairstein just gets better. Get to know her if you dare.

Susan Issacs
This is no I-guess-this-must-be-what-it's-like fantasy of how the criminal justice system operates. Final Jeopardy is a smart and gutsy insider's whodunit. But the novel has more than authenticity going for it. It's got a terrific protagonist. Alexandra Cooper is a tough, dedicated assistant district attorney and a warmhearted, funny, and insightful dame. Linda Fairstein has done one hell of a job.

Patricia Cornwell
Fairstein just gets better. Get to know her if you dare.

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Product Details

ISBN: 0671014935
ISBN-13: 9780671014933
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 448pp
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Pub. Date: January 1999
Sales Rank: 17,598
Series: Alexandra Cooper Series, #2

Table of Contents
Interviews & Essays
Reading Group Guide
Forewords & Introductions
Read an Excerpt
Read a Sample Chapter

Interviews & Essays

Before the live bn.com chat, Linda Fairstein agreed to answer some of our questions.

Q: You've worked in the D.A.'s office in New York for more than 20 years. Clearly you know a thing or two about what goes on in a courtroom and behind the scenes during a trial. What writer (or writers) do you think do the best job of conveying the reality behind the public image?

A: Hmmm. I think Scott Turow does it brilliantly.... Yes, in terms of "courtroom thrillers," as opposed to general legal novels, I think Scott Turow and Richard North Patterson are the best.

Q: Okay, now the flip side. Without, well, naming names, what's the most ridiculous thing you've ever read about the legal profession?

A: Frequently over the last 25 years, writers have asked to "shadow" us, to study what we do and how we do it. Because I love the book world, I love doing it. But typically you spend a tremendous amount of time trying to give them the reality of how this all works, and usually they go ahead and write the stereotypical Hollywood moment anyhow. For example, in the novel I'm reading now, after studying the trial process, the writer had the idea that the night before final summations, the defense attorney would come to the prosecutor's house with a pizza and a bottle of wine to try to "calm her down." So there's this scene in which the wine is flowing, and they're making love on the carpet, and I'm screaming, "No, no, no!"

Q: I'm sure that once in a while you want to escape from the legal profession altogether. What do you read when you feel like running away from it all?

A: I love biographies. I'm currently reading Katharine Graham's Personal History and Henry Grunwald's One Man's America. I always go back to mysteries -- I eat them like candy. And I love 19th-century literary fiction, like Trollope.

Q: It's midnight and you're still in your office. What kind of food do you call out for?

A: There is nothing in this neighborhood to call out for. Really. City Hall is in the bowels of Manhattan. So I have to hit the vending machines, usually for microwave popcorn or M&Ms.

Q: And your caffeinated beverage of choice?

A: Diet Coke by the vatload.

Q: What's the one question you really wish someone would ask you in one of these things?

A: Whether my own life is more interesting than my character Alexandra Cooper's.

Reading Group Guide

Reading Group Guide

LIKELY TO DIE

1. In what ways are Alex and the murdered doctor, Gemma Dogen, alike or dislike? Given their outward similarities, do you think that Gemma's death has any special resonance for Alex?

2. Although this story is fictional, it reveals some pretty unsettling things about the security of big-city hospitals. Did the novel change how you think about this world?

3. What connections does Alex have to the world of medicine? Do these connections influence the way that she pursues this case?

4. How would you describe Alex and Mike Chapman's relationship? What makes them such a great duo? This story places them in especially close proximity while they are in England. Why do you think their relationship remains platonic? Do you find yourself rooting for them to get together?

5. There's a lot we learn in this novel -- from the changes in rape laws over the last twenty-five years to the kinds of women that make the best jurors in date rape trials. How does learning about the law and the way that crimes are prosecuted affect your reading of the story?

6. On the surface, Alex seems like the kind of person who would enjoy letting off steam with a sport like kick boxing, but instead she is drawn to the world of ballet. What makes ballet so appealing to her? Is it a good fit for her character?

7. At one point in the story, Chapman comments on the murders and remarks, "We're all likely to die" (p. 282). What point is he trying to make? Where else does this phrase appear and how is it important to the story?

8. While inviting Alex to a dinner, her friend Joan chides her, "don't be a sex crimes prosecutor tonight...be a girl" (p. 200). Doyou agree with Joan that sometimes Alex forgets to be a girl?

9. The media is an important presence in Alex's world, despite the fact that she is often at odds with it. How do the reporters that constantly dog her heels add to the flavor of the book -- and help move the story along?

10. On their flight to England, Alex and Chapman talk about famous people whom they admire and whose shoes they'd like to stand in. What people did each of them choose, and what do their picks say about them?

11. In the acknowledgments, Linda Fairstein tells us that "every crime in this book is based on an actual event." Does learning this change your perception of the novel?

12. At a pretty crucial point in the investigation, Alex and Chapman are sent off to England for a conference. How does this interlude serve the novel? Did it break up the story or enhance it?

13. Why does Alex come so uncharacteristically unglued when she learns about the connection between Drew Renaud and Gemma Dogen?

Forewords & Introductions

Reading Group Guide

LIKELY TO DIE

1. In what ways are Alex and the murdered doctor, Gemma Dogen, alike or dislike? Given their outward similarities, do you think that Gemma's death has any special resonance for Alex?

2. Although this story is fictional, it reveals some pretty unsettling things about the security of big-city hospitals. Did the novel change how you think about this world?

3. What connections does Alex have to the world of medicine? Do these connections influence the way that she pursues this case?

4. How would you describe Alex and Mike Chapman's relationship? What makes them such a great duo? This story places them in especially close proximity while they are in England. Why do you think their relationship remains platonic? Do you find yourself rooting for them to get together?

5. There's a lot we learn in this novel -- from the changes in rape laws over the last twenty-five years to the kinds of women that make the best jurors in date rape trials. How does learning about the law and the way that crimes are prosecuted affect your reading of the story?

6. On the surface, Alex seems like the kind of person who would enjoy letting off steam with a sport like kick boxing, but instead she is drawn to the world of ballet. What makes ballet so appealing to her? Is it a good fit for her character?

7. At one point in the story, Chapman comments on the murders and remarks, "We're all likely to die" (p. 282). What point is he trying to make? Where else does this phrase appear and how is it important to the story?

8. While inviting Alex to a dinner, her friend Joan chides her, "don't be a sex crimes prosecutor tonight...be a girl" (p. 200). Do youagree with Joan that sometimes Alex forgets to be a girl?

9. The media is an important presence in Alex's world, despite the fact that she is often at odds with it. How do the reporters that constantly dog her heels add to the flavor of the book -- and help move the story along?

10. On their flight to England, Alex and Chapman talk about famous people whom they admire and whose shoes they'd like to stand in. What people did each of them choose, and what do their picks say about them?

11. In the acknowledgments, Linda Fairstein tells us that "every crime in this book is based on an actual event." Does learning this change your perception of the novel?

12. At a pretty crucial point in the investigation, Alex and Chapman are sent off to England for a conference. How does this interlude serve the novel? Did it break up the story or enhance it?

13. Why does Alex come so uncharacteristically unglued when she learns about the connection between Drew Renaud and Gemma Dogen?

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

The answering machine kicked in a fourth irritating echo from the insistent caller. I listened to my recorded voice announce that I was not available to come to the phone right now, as little hammers pounded furiously inside my head. The last Dewar's of the evening had been unnecessary.

I cocked an eye to glance at the illuminated dial glowing an eerie shade of green in the still dark room. It read 5:38 A.M.

"If you're screening, Coop, pick it up. C'mon, kid."

I was unmoved, and mercifully not on duty this morning.

"It's early and it's cold, but don't leave me dangling at the end of the only working phone booth in Manhattan when I'm trying to do you a favor. Pick it up, Blondie. Don't give me that 'unavailable' stuff. Last I knew you were the most available broad in town."

"Good morning, Detective Chapman, and thank you for that vote of confidence," I murmured into the receiver as I brought my arm back under the comforter to keep it warm while I listened to Mike. Too bad I'd cracked open a window for some fresh air before going to sleep. The room was frigid.

"I got something for you. A big one, if you're ready to get back in the saddle again."

I winced at Chapman's reminder that I had not picked up any serious investigations for almost five months. My involvement last fall in the murder case of my friend, the actress Isabella Lascar, had derailed me professionally. It had prompted the District Attorney to direct the reassignment of most of my trial load, so I had taken a long vacation when the killer was caught. Mike had accused me of coasting through the winter season and avoiding the kinds of difficult matters that we had worked on togetherso often in the past.

"What have you got?" I asked him.

"Oh, no. This isn't one of those 'run it by me and if it's sexy enough I'll keep it' cases, Miss Cooper. You either accept this mission on faith, or I do this, the legitimate way and call whichever one of your mopes is on the homicide chart today. There'll be some eager beaver looking to get his teeth into this -- I can't help it if he won't happen to know the difference between DNA and NBC. At least he won't be afraid to --"

"All right, all right." Chapman had just said the magic word and I was sitting straight up in bed now. I wasn't certain if I was shivering because of the bitterly cold air that was blowing in from outdoors, or because I was frightened by the prospect of plunging back into the violent landscape of rapists and murderers that had dominated my professional life for almost a decade.

"Is that a yes, Blondie? You with us on this one?"

"I promise to sound more enthusiastic after some coffee, Mike. Yes, I'm with you." His exuberance at this moment would be offensive to anyone outside the family of police and prosecutors who worked in the same orbit as he did, since it was fueled by the unnatural death of a human being. The only comfort it offered was the fact that the particular murder victim in question would be the undistracted focus of the best homicide detective in the business: Mike Chapman.

"Great. Now, get out of bed, suit up, take a few Advil for that hangover --"

"Is that just a guess, Dr. Holmes, or do you have me under surveillance?"

"Mercer told me he was in your office yesterday. Got an overheard on your evening plans -- Knicks game with your law school friends, followed by supper in the bar at '21.' Elementary, Miss Cooper. The only thing he couldn't figure was whether we'd be interrupting any steamy bedroom scene with a call at this hour. I assured him that we'd be the first to know when you gave up on abstinence."

I ignored the shot and welcomed the news that Mercer Wallace would be part of the team. A former homicide cop, he was my best investigator at the Special Victims Squad, where he caught all the major serial rape cases and pattern crimes.

"Before you use up your quarter, are you going to fill me in on this one and give me a clue about how to sell it to my boss?"

Paul Battaglia hated it when detectives shopped around his office to pull in their favorite assistant district attorneys to work on complex criminal matters. For the twenty years that he'd been the District Attorney of New York County, he had operated with an on-call system -- known as the homicide chart -- so that for every twenty-four-hour period, every day of the year, a senior prosecutor was on standby and ready to assist in the investigation of murder cases in any way that the NYPD considered useful. Questioning suspects, drafting search warrants, authorizing arrests, and interviewing witnesses -- all of the tasks fell to the assistant D.A. who was "on the chart" and had the first significant contact with the police.

"You're a natural for this one, Alex. No kidding. The deceased was sexually assaulted. Mercer's right -- we really need your guidance on this one." Chapman was referring to the fact that I am the bureau chief in charge of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit -- Battaglia's pet project that specializes in the sensitive handling of victims of rape and abuse. Often, since many of those crimes escalated to murder, my colleagues and I were designated to handle the ensuing investigations and trials.

I was stretching across to the drawer of the night table to find this month's homicide chart, to check whether I'd be stepping on the toes of one of the D.A.'s fair-haired boys, and how much flak I'd be heading for. "Well, until eight o'clock this morning, Eddie Fremont is catching."

"Oh, no, you gotta save me from him," Mike responded. "Son of a senator. That's about as useful as having my mother at the station house. Fremont's a whackjob of the first order -- I don't think he'd know probable cause if it bit him in the ass."

Chapman often did a stand-up comic routine at the bar at Forlini's, the courthouse watering hole, with the monthly calendar and chart in his hand, calling out the name of the assigned assistants and reliving some embarrassing episode from the career of each of us as he rolled off the dates. Fremont was an easy target, one of those brilliant students with impeccable academic credentials that simply failed to translate to the courtroom. Everyone assumed he had been hired as a "contract," because his father, the former senior senator from Indiana, had been Paul Battaglia's roommate at Columbia Law School.

"Or if you wait until a few minutes after eight, you can have Laurie Deitcher," I countered, aware that she would be responsible for decisions on anything coming in during the next twenty-four hours.

"The Princess? Never again, Blondie. The only time I had a high-profile case with her, it was a disaster. During the lunch hour, instead of prepping witnesses and outlining her cross-examinations, she'd make us wait in the hallway while she plugged in her hot rollers and troweled on some more makeup. Then she'd belly up to the jury box like she was Norma Desmond ready for her close-up. She looked great for the cameras, but the friggin' perp walked. Nope. You just call Battaglia and tell him Wallace and I woke you up in the middle of the night because you were the only person who could answer our questions. Hang tough with him, Cooper. This is your case."

"Like what kind of questions, Mike?"

"Like can you tell if she was raped before she was killed or after? Like does establishing the time of death have anything to do with the speed at which the sperm deteriorates, because of interference from her body fluids?"

"Now you're talking my language. Of course he'll let me keep a case like that. What do you need from me?"

"I think you'll want to get down here as soon as you can. Have your video guys meet us, too. The Crime Scene Unit has already processed the room and taken photos, but they had to move really fast. I'm just worried we all may have overlooked something that might turn out to be important, so I'd like your crew to go over the whole area and record it. Once the story breaks, the place'll be crawling with press and we won't be able to preserve it."

"Back up, Mike, and start at the top. Where are you?"

"Mid-Manhattan Medical Center. Sixth floor of the Minuit Building." East Forty-eighth Street, right off the FDR Drive. The oldest and largest medical compound in the city. The victim must have been transported there for an attempt at treatment after she was found.

"Well, where shall I meet you? Where's the scene?"

"I just told you. The sixth floor at Mid-Manhattan."

"You mean the victim was killed in the hospital?"

"Raped and killed in the hospital. Big wheel. Head of the neurosurgery department at the medical college, brain surgeon, professor. Name's Gemma Dogen."

After ten years at my job, there were very few things that surprised me, but this news was shocking.

I had always thought of hospitals as sanctuaries, places for healing the sick and wounded, comforting and easing the days of the terminally ill. I had been in and out of Mid-Manhattan countless times, visiting witnesses as well as training medical personnel in the treatment of sexual assault survivors. Its original red-brick buildings, almost a century old, had been restored to recapture the look of the antiquated sanitarium, and generous patrons of more recent times had lent their family names to a handful of granite skyscrapers that housed the latest in medical technology and a superb teaching facility -- the Minuit Medical College.

The familiar knots that tied and untied themselves in my stomach whenever I received news of a senseless crime and a sacrificed human existence took over control from the pounding noise inside my head. I began to conjure mental images of Dr. Dogen, and scores of questions -- about her life and death, her career and family, her friends and enemies -- followed each other into my mind before I could form the words with my mouth.

"When did it happen, Mike? And how --"

"Sometime in the last fifteen to twenty hours -- I'll fill you in when you get here. We got the call just after midnight. Stabbed six times. Collapsed a lung, must have hit a couple of major organs. The killer left her for dead, soaked in blood, but she actually held on for a bit. We got her as a 'likely to die.' And she did, before we got anywhere near the hospital."

Likely to die. An unfortunate name for a category of cases handled by Manhattan's elite homicide squad. Victims whose condition is so extreme when police officers reach the crime scene that no matter what herculean efforts are undertaken by medics and clerics, the next stop for these bodies is undoubtedly the morgue.

Stop wasting time, I chided myself. You'll know more than you ever wanted to know about all of this after a few hours with Chapman and Wallace.

"I can be there in less than forty-five minutes."

I got out of bed and closed the window, raising the Duette shade to look out from my apartment on the twentieth floor of an Upper East Side high-rise across the city as it began to come awake on this gray and grisly day. I have always enjoyed the crisp chill of autumn, leading as it does into the winter holiday season and the snowy blankets of January and February. My favorite months are April and May, when the city parks blossom with the green buds of springtime and the promise of warmer days of summer. So as I scanned the horizon and saw only a bleak and cheerless palette, I figured that Gemma Dogen might also have scoffed at the great poets and agreed with my personal view that March, in fact, is the cruelest month.

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One The answering machine kicked in a fourth irritating echo from the insistent caller. I listened to my recorded voice announce that I was not available to come to the phone right now, as little hammers pounded furiously inside my head. The last Dewar's of the evening had been unnecessary.

I cocked an eye to glance at the illuminated dial glowing an eerie shade of green in the still dark room. It read 5:38 A.M.

"If you're screening, Coop, pick it up. C'mon, kid."

I was unmoved, and mercifully not on duty this morning.

"It's early and it's cold, but don't leave me dangling at the end of the only working phone booth in Manhattan when I'm trying to do you a favor. Pick it up, Blondie. Don't give me that 'unavailable' stuff. Last I knew you were the most available broad in town."

"Good morning, Detective Chapman, and thank you for that vote of confidence," I murmured into the receiver as I brought my arm back under the comforter to keep it warm while I listened to Mike. Too bad I'd cracked open a window for some fresh air before going to sleep. The room was frigid.

"I got something for you. A big one, if you're ready to get back in the saddle again."

I winced at Chapman's reminder that I had not picked up any serious investigations for almost five months. My involvement last fall in the murder case of my friend, the actress Isabella Lascar, had derailed me professionally. It had prompted the District Attorney to direct the reassignment of most of my trial load, so I had taken a long vacation when the killer was caught. Mike had accused me of coasting through the winter season and avoiding the kinds of difficult matters that we had worked on together so often in the past.