Win Devil's Bridge!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: What a special guest we have today! But before you hear from Linda Fairstein (whoo hoo)—let me ask you: What were doing in 1996? That was the year President Clinton (be well!) appointed Madeleine Albright as first female US secretary of state. The F.B.I. arrested the suspected Unabomber. Big movies were The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire. The Academy Award for best picture went to Braveheart. Ebay was started.

And remember? A gallon of gas cost $1.22. A stamp for a first class letter? 32 cents. Average cost of new car was $16,300.00. And a loaf of bread $1. (How much does bread cost now?)

Anyway! That year was a big one for Linda Fairstein.  It’s the book-birth year for the Alex Cooper novels.  This week, the 17th Cooper is out—and it has a BIG TWIST. And that’s what Linda joins Jungle Red today to reveal! 

LINDA FAIRSTEIN: So funny to think of 1996, Hank! Yes, my series of crime novels started that year when I 'created' Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper. 

I gave her two great NYPD detectives, Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, to partner her in her professional life.  My readers seemed to see, long before I was conscious of the fact, that I had set up a lot of sexual tension in the friendship between Coop and Chapman.  And although there were sixteen novels, the trio only aged three years (one of the joys of writing fiction, I think) in those stories.  It wasn't until the last book (TERMINAL CITY) that the duo crossed the line from best friends to become lovers. 


 At book signings for years now, when fans asked whether there were other things I wanted to write, I always answered that I would enjoy doing a book from Mike's perspective.  I know him as well as I know Coop, and I thought it would be fascinating for me to explore the world from his point of view.  After my editor, Ben Sevier, heard me say that to an audience for about the tenth time, he took me to lunch and asked whether I really did want to write a Mike Chapman book.  I jumped to say 'yes'.  His reply was a nudge to do it, to give it a try.  It was our secret, and I spent weeks trying to figure a way into the story I wanted to tell.

When you've had success with a series, it's a dicey idea to fool around with the characters.  I decided to start with Coop's voice, as I always had, and let her take the reader through a day in court.  And it's a really bad day.  Things go dreadfully wrong for my protagonist, and after an evening celebrating someone else's success with other prosecutors and cops, Coop disappears.  Seventy pages into the story, when her world crashes to black, Mike Chapman picks up the narrative.  He has no idea that the woman he loves has gone missing as he dives into a homicide investigation in Harlem - unrelated to Coop's disappearance...or is it?  

From that moment on, we see and know what Mike does - what he learns about Alex and whether she lied to him, about whether her disappearance was willful and voluntary, about whether her long list of enemies is the secret to an abduction - or are the bad guys out to make another point.  It was a bit scary to do at first, but as I got more comfortable in Mike's head - in his mind and in his mouth - I had more fun than I have ever had writing a book in this series.  DEVIL'S BRIDGE is Coop and Chapman with a huge twist, and I'm anxious to see how my readers react to it all.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: And because she in the most generous person on the planet, Linda is offering PRIZES!  So we'll make it easy. What were you doing in 1996?  I was..let’s see. An investigative reporter in Boston, and meeting my husband Jonathan! (BIG year for me!) How about you?

   We’ll choose a commenter at random—to WIN a new hardcover of  DEVIL’S BRIDGE—and another will win a paperback of  TERMINAL CITY!

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Linda Fairstein is one of America’s foremost legal experts on crimes of violence against women and children. For three decades, from 1972 until 2002, Fairstein served in the office of the New York County District Attorney, where she was chief of the country’s pioneering Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit for twenty-six years. In that position, she supervised the investigation and trial of Manhattan cases involving sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and homicides arising out of those crimes. She was the lead attorney in the homicide prosecution of Robert Chambers (the “Preppy Murder” case) in 1988, and directed major litigation in these specialties.
 Fairstein is an honors graduate of Vassar College (1969) and the University of Virginia School of Law (1972). In 1998, Fairstein’s law school classmates established a scholarship fund in her honor at their alma mater, supporting law school students interested in pursuing careers in the public sector. She has received numerous awards for her legal work and advocacy, and in many instances, was the first woman to be so honored. 
 Ms. Fairstein is the author of an internationally best-selling series of crime novels (translated into more than a dozen languages) which feature Manhattan prosecutor Alexandra Cooper. The sixteenth in the series – TERMINAL CITY – debuted in June 2014 and was an instant New York Times bestseller, as were the dozen books which preceded it. DEVIL’S BRIDGE was published in August, 2015.  Fairstein serves on a number of non-profit boards.
 She is a trustee of Vassar College; and a founding member of the Joyful Heart Foundation (Mariska Hargitay of Law/Order: SVU’s charity to aid victims of sexual assault, where she co-chairs the national project to end the rape evidence collection kit backlog); Safe Horizon (the country’s largest victim advocacy organization); and God’s Love We Deliver (which feeds terminally ill New Yorkers). Fairstein lives with her husband Michael Goldberg in Manhattan and on Martha’s Vineyard.