The Bone Vault

Alex Cooper is a New York Assistant District Attorney, heading the sex crimes unit, who is used to dealing with society's low lifes. She often works with NYPD detective Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, who is a hostage specialist. Chapman is quick tempered and doesn't suffer fools well, but he's one heck of a detective. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is holding a reception to celebrate a forthcoming exhibition in association with the American Museum of Natural History, when customs officials announce that they have found the body of a young woman in a sarcophagus that previously had held the mummified body of an Egyptian princess. The body is that of Katrina Grooten, a young museum researcher. She'd quit her job months earlier to return to her home in South Africa, but obviously she never made it. The sarcophagus was part of a museum exchange and was about to be shipped off to a museum in Cairo. As it turns out Grooten had been poisoned with arsenic and because the musem uses a lot of it, everyone is suspect. As Cooper and Chapman investigate they learn that there are petty jealousies even in a stuffy museum and they get a first hand look at the murderous world of New York art. The search for clues in the spooky acres of underground warehouses is fascinating and chilling - bottles of bugs and barrels of bones - in addition to contacts with a host of museum workers who work in a rather dark and dreary place. "The Bone Vault" is a page-turner that will give you a look at the daily lives of those who work in our museums as it builds it's tension, page by page. Also the closed atmosphere of the museum gives the story an old-fashioned air, sort of like watching a Charlie Chan mystery. The killer is in the house, but who is it? Highly recommended.

Alex Cooper is a New York Assistant District Attorney, heading the sex crimes unit, who is used to dealing with society's low lifes. She often works with NYPD detective Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, who is a hostage specialist. Chapman is quick tempered and doesn't suffer fools well, but he's one heck of a detective.New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is holding a reception to celebrate a forthcoming exhibition in association with the American Museum of Natural History, when customs officials announce that they have found the body of a young woman in a sarcophagus that previously had held the mummified body of an Egyptian princess.The body is that of Katrina Grooten, a young museum researcher. She'd quit her job months earlier to return to her home in South Africa, but obviously she never made it. The sarcophagus was part of a museum exchange and was about to be shipped off to a museum in Cairo.As it turns out Grooten had been poisoned with arsenic and because the musem uses a lot of it, everyone is suspect. As Cooper and Chapman investigate they learn that there are petty jealousies even in a stuffy museum and they get a first hand look at the murderous world of New York art. The search for clues in the spooky acres of underground warehouses is fascinating and chilling - bottles of bugs and barrels of bones - in addition to contacts with a host of museum workers who work in a rather dark and dreary place."The Bone Vault" is a page-turner that will give you a look at the daily lives of those who work in our museums as it builds it's tension, page by page. Also the closed atmosphere of the museum gives the story an old-fashioned air, sort of like watching a Charlie Chan mystery. The killer is in the house, but who is it? Highly recommended.

This is one book that held my attention. It was never boring and I could hardly wait to get back to it. It was very interesting when it went into the world of museums and mummies etc. This is a good read and I do recommend it.

Linda Fairstein again brings history and mystery together in a spectacular 5th edition of the Alex Cooper series. The Bone Vault takes the reader through the several museums of the Upper East Side, and while I noticed a reader(Yusef Salaam Kharey Wise) called the novel "a pretense of intellectualism, and" and goes on to criticize Fairstein for "departing the law for creative writing and for being a New York institution," I hope readers don't believe this review, the reviewer criticizes the museums, yet if he had read the description of the book it obviously states that the plot focuses on New York Museums and society types of New York City. Linda Fairstein describes the Museums with slendor that they deserve and yes, Fairstein and her character are classy . This novel may be the best in the series and the relationship between Mike Chapman and Alex Cooper leaves uncertainty about the future. A GREAT READ AND I LOOK FORWARD TO MORE FAIRSTEIN.

I love Fairstein's books and I literally couldn't put this latest one down. She has a knack for taking great New York institutions and landmarks and revealing the history and mystery behind them in an inventive way. The research is meticulous, the plot zings along, and, as always, Alex Cooper and her cohorts are great company. The Museum of Natural History is Fairstein's prime target this time, but there are fascinating tidbits about The Metropolitan Museum and the Cloisters. Reading about the hidden rooms, the storage spaces with extraordinary collections, not to mention what once went on in these places under the guise of scholarship, I just thought: Wow.