In 2002, Linda Fairstein retired from her position as head of the
Sex Crimes Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's office. She is
the Real Deal --- a real life prosecutor who can write. She's also
blonde and gorgeous. Now go ahead and tell me life is fair!

With each of her five novels since FINAL JEOPARDY (her first), she
has displayed an increasingly smooth storytelling style uniquely
her own. If her books read a lot like true crime, it's because she
knows her material down to the most intimate detail. Fairstein's
daily work routine has become the stuff of television legend, via
Law & Order, particularly Law & Order: SVU,
which stands for the department she originated --- not in fiction
but in real life. She has made an enormous contribution to the
now-safer streets of New York City and, with her retirement, will
certainly be missed. We who like to read are lucky because we now
have her full-time attention as a writer.

In her fifth outing with her DA protagonist, Alexandra Cooper,
Linda Fairstein takes us into a fascinating behind-the-scenes world
at the Metropolitan Museum and its offshoot for medieval art
history, The Cloisters, as well as the New York Museum of Natural
History. They have been planning a 3-way cooperative exhibit on
Beastiaries, Real and Imagined (a fictional exhibit that sounds
like such a great idea, I wanted to see it for myself). The victim
is a young, promising museum employee of The Cloisters who worked
on that exhibit. Her perfectly preserved body is found inside an
ancient limestone sarcophagus that was about to be shipped abroad,
as part of a large shipment of art on exchange from the
Metropolitan. Within 24 hours of the body's discovery, the Met's
famous Director has resigned. He claims his resignation has no
relationship whatever to the finding of the body but, of course,
Alex and her team members, Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, are not
so easily convinced.

An autopsy reveals that the victim died of arsenic poisoning and
that she had been dead for almost six months. How did the body come
to be in such perfect condition after such a long time? More
interesting speculations occur when the head of the museum's
Egyptian Collection leaves to attend a "mummy congress" in Chile
--- it seems he is the world's foremost expert on mummification.
And so onward, the story goes.

Linda Fairstein is deadly serious about her concern over crime (sex
crimes in particular) and her novels reflect this concern. But THE
BONE VAULT is, nevertheless, fun to read. It is no small
achievement to be able to write heavy stuff with a light touch, but
she has pulled it off for much of the book. If you enjoy going to
museums, this will be a treat for you. Even if museums aren't quite
your ideal for crime story enrichment, you'll find a lot of other
little tidbits that add to the narrative. These tidbits include
insight into Alan Dershowitz's Martha's Vineyard beach habits and
in what movie you might catch a glimpse of William Shatner's pubic
hair ... if you have sharp eyes and are inclined to look.

THE BONE VAULT is Linda Fairstein's best yet.