Cold Hit
By Linda Fairstein
Reviewed by Ina R. Bort
From the New York Law Journal (1999)
Note to self: in your next life, return to Earth as Alexandra Cooper. This smart, witty, wealthy, popular, blonde (dyed, but still), athletic, happy heroine of Cold Hit, is, by far, the coolest lawyer in town.
Of course, I already knew of Alex’s many talents and charms even before starting Linda Fairstein’s latest. After all, I went to law school with Alex back in ... you’re not buying this, are you. Fair enough. (But do remind me to tell you about my years with Ronald Reagan).
Alex’s new assignment as the head of the Sex Crimes Unit of the Manhattan D.A.’s office is to bring to justice the man who raped and murdered Denise Caxton — a stunning gallery owner whose battered body turns up, tied to a ladder, at Sputyen Duyvil, the tidal strait connecting the Harlem and Hudson Rivers.
Alex, who tags along with New York police officers Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, combs the city to find the perpetrator. The circuitous route to the crime’s solution begins with Lowell Caxton, Denise’s billionaire, and suspiciously unmoved husband, and owner of the world-famous Caxton art collection. Other suspects are Denise’s art world cronies, most of them her former lovers, all of them perfectly groomed. You can almost smell the cologne wafting from the chapters set in Chelsea’s hippest galleries.
The snazzy backdrops and up-to-the-minute New York references make Cold Hit fun. These include allusions to a mayor who "wanted the crime rate to move" in "only one direction" and at whose behest every NYPD precinct commander is "called upon to answer for the evil that crossed his borderlines." As well as a description of "[t]he area in front of the Supreme Court, Civil Division, [that] had been under renovation for almost a year in an effort to convert a cement triangle into a small green park." But it’s the portrait of Alex drawn by Fairstein that makes an impression.
Her busy schedule notwithstanding, Alex finds time to reflect upon her life, and she’s admirably candid about the good hand life has dealt her. "Born and raised in a suburban village in . . . Westchester County," and the proud owner of a gray-shingled farmhouse on the Vineyard (complete with caretaker and a stunning view of Vineyard Sound), Alex acknowledges that "[m]ost of my life had been a charmed one. I was one of three children . . . of loving parents whose marriage was still not only a sound one, but a great romance as well. The trust fund . . . had been used to give me a first class education, first at Wellesley and then at the University of Virginia School of Law. It permitted me to indulge my dream of working in the public sector without the enormous burden of student loans. . ."
Alex was not only on the Harrison High School swim team, she was "anchor of the relay." Nor has her hectic job lessened her ability to swim "almost fifty laps" in Vineyard Sound should the mood strike her.
Wait — there’s more. Alex absolutely loves her job, and her co-workers love her (the male ones, anyway). She regularly socializes with Chapman and Wallace, watching Jeopardy! and sipping scotch with them at the local watering hole. Her eating habits are blameless — from what I could tell, the only thing that Alex consumes is salad and an occasional light yogurt. And her wardrobe? Among her phone messages at work one day is a "request from Elaine to set a time to come into the Escada store to have the clothes I ordered from the fall collection shortened..."
Also firmly on track is Alex’s personal life. She has just started dating network newscaster Jake Tyler, that common breed of New York man who has both the ability to sustain a serious relationship and a full head of "thick brown hair."
By now it should be no mystery why the life of Alexandra Cooper is one I plan to appropriate the next time around. And, for the most part, Fairstein is adept at weaving the details about Alex into the story. But there are occasional exceptions.
While I’m all for character development, several allusions to Alex’s charmed life are simply gratuitous. An example lies in her musings about St. Bart’s, prompted by her learning that Denise and Lowell Caxton had a home there: "I knew the small Carribean paradise well. My parents had bought a home and begun spending winters there after my father retired from the practice of medicine. . . . It would be easy for me to get information about the Caxtons from my connections on the island." As neither St. Bart’s nor any of these alleged "connections" is ever again invoked, Fairstein’s rationale for including this rather pretentious tidbit is unclear.
This (and several other problems — such as a preposterous ending) aside, Cold Hit is entertaining. It’s clear that Fairstein had a ball writing this book, and her efforts have likely been met with success, particularly since Bill Clinton placed it on his highly publicized vacation reading list, and, we can speculate, was glad to have done so. After all, who better than he could relate to a smart, athletic, well-dressed lawyer dating someone with a full head of thick brown hair?
