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    Bad Blood
    Bad Blood
    Bad Blood
    Audiobook11 hours

    Bad Blood

    Written by Linda Fairstein

    Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    New York Times bestselling and Nero Award–winning author Linda Fairstein takes readers to the greatest heights and deepest depths of New York City in this riveting Alexandra Cooper thriller, filled with the former prosecutor’s unique blend of authenticity, history, and suspense.

    Bad Blood finds Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper deeply involved in a complicated, high-profile homicide case. Defendant Brendan Quillian, a prominent young businessman, is charged with the brutal strangulation of his beautiful young wife, Amanda. His conviction is not a certainty: Quillian was conveniently out of town on the day of the killing, and he has hired a formidable defense attorney who seems one step ahead of Cooper as the trial opens. But with the help of detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, she is confident she can prove Quillian paid a hit man to commit the crime.

    Halfway through the trial, a major catastrophe alters the course of Alex's case. A cataclysmic ex-plosion rips through New York City's Water Tunnel #3, a spectacular feat of modern engineering that will be completed years in the future. Carved through bedrock six hundred feet underground, the tunnel will replace a vital artery in the city's rapidly deteriorating water supply system. Was the blast caused by terrorism? Political retribution? Or was it merely an accident? Cooper is quickly drawn into the trag-edy when she discovers a strange connection linking Brendan Quillian to the tunnel workers killed in the explosion.

    At the same time, Alex meets a mysterious, handsome stranger. Should she get to know him better? Before the answer is clear, she is pulled back into the case, which is becoming more dangerous by the hour. She and Chapman descend deep into the earth to penetrate the subterranean universe of the sandhogs, as the brotherhood of tunnel workers are colorfully known. Their probe soon leads to another murder victim, whose blood may hold the key to Cooper's mesmerizingly complex case. One closely held secret reveals another, and soon Alex discovers that only by unraveling ancient rivalries among sandhog families will she be able to solve the murder of Amanda Quillian—and save her own life as well.

    A riveting tale of up-to-the-minute urban intrigue, Bad Blood is rich with New York City lore and fascinating legal insights that only Fairstein, Manhattan's former sex crimes prosecutor, can deliver. Told in her signature authentic style, Bad Blood is packed with the same twists and turns that made her last novel, Death Dance, a runaway bestseller and that never fail to thrill her legions of devoted readers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMar 8, 2011
    ISBN9781442342644
    Bad Blood
    Author

    Linda Fairstein

    Linda Fairstein was chief of the Sex Crimes Unit of the district attorney's office in Manhattan for more than two decades and is America's foremost legal expert on sexual assault and domestic violence. Her Alexandra Cooper novels are international bestsellers and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. She lives in Manhattan and on Martha's Vineyard.

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    Reviews for Bad Blood

    3.5/5

    168 ratings16 reviews

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    • 3/5
      some of the plot was a little unbelievable
    • 4/5
      I hope linda puts Alex and Mike together as couple
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable mystery. The information on Sandhogs was new to me.
    • 4/5
      unusual setting to a great thriller
    • 4/5
      Excellent suspense and storytelling In my opinion, I thought "Bad Blood" was an excellent read, and it kept my interest as I followed Alex Cooper as she searched for answers to solve a tunnel explosion and a man on trial for the murder of his wife. The story moves along at a quick pace and I felt it was an interesting read. The reviews are numerous on this tale, so there's no need at this point to recap the story further, else I may give away more of the story for those folks that haven't read it. I will add that it was very educational to learn (which I always enjoy) about the water tunnels of New York City. It was very apparent that Ms. Fairstein did a considerable amount research into this subject and I appreciate her effort. Overall, I enjoyed this great mystery and I'd gladly recommend it to anyone.
    • 3/5
      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 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.
    • 1/5
      A readers digest condensed book story from work. Did not like the storyline or characters. Nothing impressive or memorable about this book.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      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 the formulaic elements that followed.
    • 4/5
      A delightful mix of police procedures, forensic detection, budding romance, and some history of the underground tunnels of New York City. Alexandra Cooper, the district attorney handles them all with aplomb.
    • 4/5
      finds Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper deeply involved ina complicated, high-profile homicide case. Defendant Brendan Quilliam, a prominent young businessman, is charged with the brutal strangulation of his beautifful young wife, Amanda. His conviction is not a certainty: Quilliam was conveniently ouut of town on the day of the killing, and he has hired a formidable defense attorney who seems one step ahead of Cooper as the trial opens. But with the help of detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, she is confident she can prove Quillian paid a hit man to commit the crime.
    • 5/5
      A good read I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the ending.
    • 4/5
      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 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.
    • 5/5
      This is the ninth in the Alex Cooper series by Linda Fairstein. Fairstein was the head of the sex crimes unit in the DA's office in New York City for 25 years, leaving to concentrate on her writing and to be a media consultant on sexual violence and domestic abuse for the major networks. Her character, Alex Cooper, is also the chief prosecutor for the sex crimes unit, and many of the minor stories in the books are based on real cases Fairstein has been involved with. This background gives great authenticity to the series. More than that, Fairstein loves and knows the city of New York so well, and each book tends to focus on some fascinating aspect of the city, such as the time Edgar Allen Poe spent there, the art world, the Metropolitan Opera House, etc. In Bad Blood, the story revolves around the New York City subterranean world, the fragile water system. the subways, and all the underground world worked by sandhogs The plot is excellent, the settings incredible, particularly the closed City Hall subway stationI sometimes get tired of the character of Mike Chapman, the policeman Alex works most with, but it wasn't a bother in this book. It was an excellent entry in a good series.
    • 3/5
      I just wasn't that into this book - it didn't have any really exciting, edgy parts like I expect from this author, there were a few overdone descriptions and unrealistic conversations, and the Jeopardy thing is really starting to feel overdone - c'mon, they're really together near a TV at Jeopardy time THAT often? However, I definitely recommend some of Fairstein's earlier titles in this series - maybe she's just getting tired of doing this same thing and needs to break free and start a fresh series?
    • 3/5
      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 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.