The Bone Vault

Rating:
Summary: An interesting disappointment
Review: "The Bone Vault" could have been a swell 250-page mystery. Unfortunately, it's a 500-page stew of red herrings, dead-end subplots and research, research, research.

This was my first time reading Linda Fairstein, so for all I know all of her books are like this, but "The Bone Vault" just seemed overstuffed. I'm sure Fairstein wanted to paint a realistic portrait of the hectic, never-ending schedule of a sex-crimes prosecutor. That is admirable, and much of it kept me turning the pages, but she just keeps piling it on. There's a stalker, backstabbing co-workers, a lying teen, an S&M tape, a weekend in Martha's Vineyard, reflections on Sept. 11 and various romantic yearnings. Yet none of it has anything to do with the main mystery at hand.

Speaking of the mystery, it didn't make much of an impression. Murder among the secret lairs of Manhattan's finest museums is an interesting concept, one that drew me to the book in the first place. And Fairstein obviously did a great deal of research, cramming the book with facts, tidbits and history until it's bursting at the binding. Even worse, most of it is relayed through clunky dialogue and exposition in the form of museum tours the characters take. Some of it is interesting, but a lot of it is as dry as a, well, bone.

Unfortunately, all of it manages to bury the mystery in historical dust and subplot rubble. The suspects are interchangeable, with blank characterizations and hazy motives. The suspense level hums along at relatively low wattage. And with all the frantic goings-on before it, the climax is disappointing.

Still, I liked Alex Cooper and her rapport with cop Mike Chapman. I liked learning new things about the museums I had spent so many hours roaming. And I even liked the breakneck pace of a majority of the subplots. Had it been assembled with more skill and judicious editing, "The Bone Vault" could have been a fascinating read. But there's too much fat on the bones, and the book ends up being an interesting disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: The Mummy's Bones Aren't Old Enough
Review: Alex Cooper is a New York Assistant District Attorney, heading the sex crimes unit, who is used to dealing with society's low lifes. She often works with NYPD detective Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, who is a hostage specialist. Chapman is quick tempered and doesn't suffer fools well, but he's one heck of a detective.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is holding a reception to celebrate a forthcoming exhibition in association with the American Museum of Natural History, when customs officials announce that they have found the body of a young woman in a sarcophagus that previously had held the mummified body of an Egyptian princess.

The body is that of Katrina Grooten, a young museum researcher. She'd quit her job months earlier to return to her home in South Africa, but obviously she never made it. The sarcophagus was part of a museum exchange and was about to be shipped off to a museum in Cairo.

As it turns out Grooten had been poisoned with arsenic and because the musem uses a lot of it, everyone is suspect. As Cooper and Chapman investigate they learn that there are petty jealousies even in a stuffy museum and they get a first hand look at the murderous world of New York art. The search for clues in the spooky acres of underground warehouses is fascinating and chilling - bottles of bugs and barrels of bones - in addition to contacts with a host of museum workers who work in a rather dark and dreary place.

"The Bone Vault" is a page-turner that will give you a look at the daily lives of those who work in our museums as it builds it's tension, page by page. Also the closed atmosphere of the museum gives the story an old-fashioned air, sort of like watching a Charlie Chan mystery. The killer is in the house, but who is it? Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, But Needs More Editing
Review: Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper investigates when museum intern South African Katrina Grooten is found dead in a sarcophagus. This was interesting (especially compared to the author's earlier novels), though some bits could've been left out. (B+)

Rating:
Summary: Stand-out Novel of Suspense
Review: Fairstein once again draws on her own experiences with protagonist Alexandra Cooper, who works as the head of the Sex Crimes Unit of Manhattan D.A.'s Office, a position previously held by the author. A party at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art soon leads to a murder investigation when director Pierre Thibodaux enlists Alex's help to find out why an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, awaiting shipment to Egypt from a New Jersey pier, inexplicably contains the well-preserved remains of a young woman, not an Egyptian princess as presumed, but a twenty-first century woman.

When the photograph of the deceased woman identifies her as Katrina Grooten by Thibodaux's assistant, Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman attempt to discover who would have had access to the sarcophagus in which she was buried and why anyone would have wanted the young museum employee dead. Working at the Cloisters, where the Met housed its medieval art, Katrina was part of a project that included the Museum of Natural History in a joint bestiary exhibit studying ancient monster type beasts.

While the varied descriptions of the museum exhibits and the vastness of the holdings may serve for dry reading, Ms. Fairstein keeps the pace flowing with her study of the interpersonal relationship between Detective Chapman and Alex, in an especially touching reminiscence of the aftermath of September eleventh. Fairstein's first-hand knowledge of the Manhattan D.A.'s office allows her to imbue her main character with realism, as she chronicles Alex's complex and ever expanding caseload. This truly stand out read will have readers reaching for more Alex Cooper novels and eagerly anticipating future ones.

Rating:
Summary: A surprisingly fun suspense novel
Review: I picked this book up looking for a quick read and expecting a sort of Da Vinci Code type suspense thriller. I did find a quick read but the novel was no were close to the quality of Da Vinci Code.

Instead, I found a surprisingly fun novel, not just about the Metropolitan Museum but more focused on the Natural History Museum in NYC. While I was expecting another art murder mystery, I found instead learning about the history of the Natural History Museum set admist a murder at the Met.

Fairstein was a quick read and typical of mass produced mystery novels but this one had an edge that I found alluring. I was able to appreciate the novelist's research on the museums as well as her writing abilities. While they might not be Pulitizer Prize winning it was an enjoyable read.

The novel was a little predictable and the killer pretty obvious but I still found it fun and rather enjoyable. A good beach read.

Rating:
Summary: spin your head and race you away
Review: The glitzy reception at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art should have been a welcome evening off for Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper. But the announcement of a cooperative exhibition with the American Museum of Natural History is overshadowed by a 'gruesome discovery: in an ancient sarcophagus bound for a show abroad, customs officials have found the body of a young woman.

Katrina Grooten was a quiet, studious, hard-working intern at the Cloisters, the magnificent but foreboding home of the Museum's collection of medieval art. According to its records, Katrina had left her job several months earlier to return to her native South Africa: her eerily preserved body is grisly proof she'd never made it home. And the, whi lines on her fingernails are the telltale sign of her killer's modus operandi: arsenic poisoning.

But why would anyone want Katrina dead? As Alex and NYPD Detective Mike Chapman begin their investigations, they encounter an establishment whose culture is as curious as the exhibits they display, and whose secrets and rivalries are as ancient. And then, in the depths of the museum, they discover a number of mysterious vaults, whose bones hold the clues to Katrina's murder. . .