The Fabulous Linda Fairstein

INGRID THOFT

I'm thrilled to welcome Linda Fairstein to the blog today!  Not only is she a New York Times bestselling author, Linda is also a champion for women and a pioneer in the prosecution of sex crimes.  The former head of the Sex Crimes Special Victims Unit in the Manhattan District Attorney's office, Linda has been fighting for women's rights long before she created whip smart prosecutor, Alexandra Cooper.

Linda is as generous and fun to talk with as she is smart and talented.  See for yourself!

Ingrid Thoft: Tell us about DEADFALL, your latest Alexandra Cooper book, and I want to assure readers new to the series that they don't have to start with book one.

Linda Fairstein:  Exactly.  Readers can start here even though it’s the 19th in the series.  The last book, I did something I think is pretty radical for a writer in a series.  We usually tie up all the ends and give the reader a neat package, and so, when I turned in KILLER LOOK, the 18th in the series, I had two endings.  I had the ending that is now the next-to-last chapter, and I tacked on this two-page scene because I really wanted to do it. I was quite sure my editor would say, "You can't do this."  But she said, "I like it.  I really like it.  I love leaving the readers hanging that way.  Your regular readers will come back."

IPT: Absolutely. This was a real change in terms of how you work, though.

LF:  So starting this book, as you would guess, was the easiest thing, and it's never easy to start.  I knew I had to pick up just hours later after the shooting in [KILLER LOOK]. When you're looking for that first page, "how do you get the first scene that's going to capture the reader?"  I had it!  It’s going to be in the morgue!  I didn’t know whether it would capture the reader or not—I don’t mean to sound vain about that—but I just knew where I had to start.  That was the unexpected boon to ending the book with a suspenseful killing that Alex witnessed.

She becomes the suspect, in the sense that, did she actually lure the man to the assassination that was triggered? I turned the tables on her for the first time in 19 books and made her a suspect, a person of interest, as they now say.  Those first 100 pages were such a wonderful challenge for me to write because it was taking all the interrogations I've done over the years and putting her in that seat.

Linda was recently interviewed by Lesley Stahl for

 "CBS Sunday Morning." Photo: Linda Fairstein/CBS

IPT:  Animal conservation and international wildlife trafficking are central topics in the book.  Have you always been interested in these subjects?

LF:  I’ve been on the board of a wildlife conservation organization, a nonprofit called the White Oak Conservation Center, and I've been interested in this issue for a long time.  I only recently read about the global connection.  It’s only recently that federal prosecutors began to prosecute [wildlife trafficking] in America. The fact that that the predators use what’s called the “heroin highway” to smuggle was totally new to me.  

IPT:  As a reader and lay person, I was fascinated seeing the local versus the federal law enforcement issues. I knew that there were turf wars and issues about jurisdiction, but I didn't have a true understanding of that.  

LF:  It's interesting to me because with my specialty—sex crimes special victims work—there really were not turf battles.  The feds have no jurisdiction for sex crimes unless they’re on Indian reservations, a military base or in a post office.

IPT:  A post office?

LF:  Yes.  We had a couple of West Point investigations, and they usually called me for help.  Bob Morgenthau was the DA for most of my tenure, and at the most vicious point, Rudy Giuliani—when he was a federal prosecutor, before he was mayor—and Bob fought for global cases like children in a sand box.  As an executive in that office—but not in the middle of those cases—I watched with great wonder as these grown men fought.  They were really federal cases, most of them, but Morgenthau was smart enough that if something happened at a bank with a New York branch connection, to just go for it.

IPT:  One of the main settings in DEADFALL is the Bronx Zoological Park.  I was fascinated that this place exists in what is, technically, New York City.  You thank the park in the acknowledgements and mention it was a frequent childhood destination.

Picture courtesy of the Wildlife Conservation Society, an organization

 that aided Linda in her research.

LF:  I grew up in a very un-fancy suburb called Mount Vernon, New York, a town adjacent to the Bronx, and we were a fifteen-minute car ride to the Bronx Zoo.  Spring and fall, there would always be a mother or father to say, "Let's go to the zoo, and spend a few hours there on a Saturday."  I grew up with incredible access to the zoo and learned so much.

Of course, in those days, the '50s and the early '60s, they were horribly different places; the lion had a space probably the size of my living room, and these caged animals were pacing back and forth, but I’ve watched it evolve.  I’ve probably never—and I say this with a big smile—I’ve never researched anything that was more fun than this.

IPT:  Did you do a lot of research into big game hunting?  I had no idea these animals are imported into the country for the purpose of hunting them.

LF:  I did a lot of research.  I knew from White Oak where I was involved, that the man who founded it, Howard Gilman (he’s longer alive), would bring endangered species from Africa to a 7,000 acre preserve [in the U.S.].  He had scientists who did DNA, and the whole point was to repopulate the wild.  They were not animals on display like the zoo.

When Justice Antonin Scalia died, I was fascinated that it was at a private hunting preserve in Texas, where they bring in wild animals, the more endangered animals from Africa, for you to shoot.  The price per night of these lodges—not for him I'm sure—depends on how rare the animal is that you want to kill, which just revolted me.

IPT: I'm with you on that.

LF:  My husband has a place in Montana, and it’s obviously a part of the country where hunting is the culture.  I'm not part of, and Mike’s not a shooter, but it also got me reading.  In fact, just at the time I was writing the book, a huge article, "The Ultimate Pursuit in Hunting: Sheep" by John Branch that I credit in the acknowledgments about the bighorn sheep auction, was in the New York Times.  I really just took a left turn and went to Montana with the story because I knew the landscape.  I had no idea that people would pay half a million dollars to come shoot the sheep, and then, that money is used to “save” other sheep.


IPT: That is just bizarre.

LF: It’s bizarre.  It’s oxymoronic.

IPT:  Moving on to a topic dear to both of our hearts, you dedicated the book to the women who were Carolyn Keene.  I assume you grew up reading Nancy Drew?

LF:  Absolutely.  For me it was the gateway to two things: it was the girl sleuth—woman—but she was really a girl, and it was the series.  I remember so clearly if I were home sick with the measles or it was Christmas, my mother would give me the next one.  It was the gateway for me and to my devotion to try—certainly not imitate her—but it's my homage to Carolyn Keene.  Carolyn Keene really set me on my way.

IPT:  One of the things I always loved about Nancy Drew is that there would be an intruder in the night at the house, and after Nancy foiled this person, Hannah Gruen would always serve angel food cake and hot chocolate.

LF: That’s so perfect.

IPT:  Almost makes an intruder seem worth it!  Speaking of girl sleuths, you have a relatively new series starring Devlin Quick.  That’s a middle grade series?

LF:  Yes, middle grade, not young adult.  It's eight to twelve-year-olds.  It's really a kid thing.  No sex, no violence, no drugs.

IPT:  The first came out last fall, INTO THE LION’S DEN, which was set in the New York Public Library.  When can all the parents and grandparents reading this expect the second installment?  And does it also take place in New York City?

LF:  The second one is called DIGGING FOR TROUBLE, and it's coming out on November 5th.  It’s set here in Montana, which is probably the most dinosaur fossil-rich part of the US because there once was an inland sea through this area.  The kids are on a ranch—much like my husband’s— and go on a dig, and they find bones.  It goes back to the Museum of National History in New York.

IPT:  Okay, Here’s my curve ball question.  I love your author photo; you look knowledgeable, approachable, elegant, in charge, but not rigid.  Author photos are really tough to get right.  Like I said in an email to you, my editor warned me, "No small animals, no hats,” which weren't actually an option.

LF: That was hysterical.

IPT:  So how did you approach your author photo?  Did you have help with it?  How did it come about?

Photo by Katherine Marks

LF:  I'll tell you how it came about it.  What I love about this is nobody has ever asked this question.


IPT:  Really?  Right away, I thought, “This photo is fabulous!”

LF:  Well, as a 70-year-old woman—and this started in my 60s—I have a double chin genetically, and I cringe at all those authors' photos where women of a certain age are holding up their jowls with their elbow on the table.

IPT:  Or with their small dog.

LF:  I really wanted to get away from that.  The New York Times did a story, completely unrelated to the book, for their Real Estate section about apartments and where you live.

IPT: I saw that! "The Case of the Disappearing Chintz." I love the Real Estate section of the Times.

LF:  A women named Katherine Marks was hired by the Times to photograph me in my home.  She spent so much time with me because she was photographing objects, so there's just enough time to loosen up and be comfortable.  Katherine came up with the photograph, and when my editor said, "Okay.  New author photo,"  I said, "Why don't you look at these pictures Katherine took. There are three or four that I'd be perfectly happy using."  And so, that came out of a New York Times’ “show me your apartment feature.”

IPT:  This is a slight detour from talking about books, but I wanted to be sure to tell you that I’m a big fan, not only of you as a writer, but also of your work as a prosecutor, and of the work you do for women.  It’s quite impressive.

LF:  Well, thank you.  I'm always grateful when somebody says something about the first career.  It means the world to me, and the work meant the world to me.

IPT:  Thank you so much for spending the day with Jungle Red!

LF:  The Jungle Red women have always been good to me, and it’s a smart, fun site, so I'm happy to be included.

Today is a giveaway bonanza!  Linda is very generously giving away a copy of DEADFALL, a copy of KILLER LOOK, and a copy of INTO THE LION'S DEN!  Three readers will be winners!  Just comment to enter or ask Linda a question; she'll be checking in throughout the day.

DEADFALL
A wild heart beats within New York City. Amid concrete and skyscrapers, the Wildlife Conservation Society works to preserve and protect the animal kingdom both within and beyond the borders of the five boroughs. But dangerous creatures don't always have claws and fangs, as Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper and NYPD detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace know all too well. Predators lurk close to home, and in the aftermath of the shocking assassination of an iconic public figure—someone Alex has worked with for years—the trio must unravel the motive behind the shooting to discover who is the bigger snake: the killer or the victim.
 
The murder investigation provides more questions than answers, as a tangled mess of secrets slowly comes to light. From street gangs to secret societies, from big-game hunting to the illegal animal trade, from New York City zoos to the highest offices in city government, Alex has her work cut out for her—especially since the task force handling the investigation, led by the US Attorney, seems to be more against her than with her. As tensions rise between Alex and the feds, she must determine just how far she is willing to go to uncover the truth—and uphold the integrity of the office she has so proudly served.

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.