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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743223546
ISBN: 0743223543
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: January 21, 2003
Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: January 21, 2003
Sales Rank: 311142
Studio: Scribner
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The New York Times bestselling author and renowned former Manhattan prosecutor follows her Nero Award-winning The Deadhouse with a mesmerizing new Alexandra Cooper novel set at the crossroads of big money, high culture, and murder...
The Bone Vault begins in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's glorious Temple of Dendur, where wealthy donors have gathered to celebrate a controversial new exhibit.
An uneasy mix of scholarship, showbiz, and aggressive marketing, 'A Modern Bestiary' will be a joint venture of the Met and the American Museum of Natural History. With its IMAX time trips and Rembrandt refrigerator magnets, the 'Bestiary' has raised fierce opposition from some of New York's museum elite.
Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper, off duty for the evening, observes the developing tensions with bemused interest until Met director Pierre Thibodaux pulls her aside. He needs her advice. There's an urgent problem out at a loading dock on a New Jersey pier.
A Twelfth Dynasty mummified princess, enclosed for eternity in a huge stone sarcophagus, is about to take a long voyage to Cairo as part of a routine museum exchange. But Cleopatra is missing, and in her place is the not-so-mummified body of a woman many centuries younger than her royal predecessor.
Who is this woman with the small physique, the dark hair, and the shiny barrette? What is her connection, if any, to the rarefied world of priceless art and objects? And how and when did she become entombed in the sarcophagus?
Teaming with cops Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, Alex must explore behind the scenes at the elegant but severe Metropolitan, travel uptown to the remote setting of the Cloisters and its medieval trove of funerary art, and on to the massive array of beasts and bones at the Museum of Natural History. Somewhere deep within the bowels of one of these great cultural centers, a killer may wait.
Atmospheric, chilling, and rich with the kind of procedural authenticity that only Linda Fairstein can provide, The Bone Vault is a page-turning tour de force from one of crime writing's brightest stars.
Amazon.com Review:
One of the special pleasures of this lively series, written by a veteran sex-crimes investigator for the Manhattan district attorney's office, is the unusual glimpse it gives readers into corners of New York no tourist and few residents ever see (The Deadhouse). Here she turns her attention to the city's major cultural edifices--the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Natural History, and the Cloisters--and takes us behind their sealed doors to investigate the murder of a museum curator whose mummified body turns up in an ancient sarcophagus just before it's shipped out of the country. Together with her partners, cops Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, assistant DA Alexandra Cooper retraces Katrina Grooten's steps from her native South Africa to the discovery of her remains on a New Jersey pier. Along the way, the mysteries of the ancient world get equal billing with the more contemporary whodunit, and Cooper and her pals get a firsthand look at the murderous New York art world, too. Fairstein's thrillers offer an in-depth tour of truly off-the-beaten-path Manhattan as well as solid plotting, well-drawn characters, and snappy dialogue. What the DA's office lost when the author retired to write full-time is the mystery fan's biggest gain! --Jane Adams
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Sad I ever left
This book presents such a realistic picture of life in Manhattan that it makes me really sad that I no longer live there. The mystery, constantly unfolding in different dimensions, generates a high degree of curiosity as to what will happen next. I am becoming a real Fairstein fan. Definitely underpriced.
Rating:  - A Thriller Lacking Thrills
I don't know how I got through this book. It was not until about page 270 of a 369 page book (where the character of Clem is introduced) that anything interesting happens. Also, for a "thriller" there is about 2 pages of any real tension where the main character (Alexandra Cooper) gets locked in a storage closet.
The book does some light exploration of three major New York City Museum (History, Met and the Cloisters) but unlike a good Lincoln Child and Preston Douglas novel, you ... Read More
Rating: - Good but not a real mystery
Lots of interesting details about what goes on behind the scenes at the Metropolitan & the Natural History Museum, but a really weak mystery plotline. _NO_ knowledge of Africa at all, just New York PC views. They're two different things. Willem van der Post's death is pure Hollywood -- anyone with any knowledge of Africa would just burst out laughing. The author also knows nothing about Continental names. 'Van der' is Dutch & any name which contains it is perfectly ordinary. 'Von' is Austrian ... Read More
Rating: - Another top-notch suspense novel
I enjoy all of the books in this thoughtful, intelligent series. I enjoy Fairstein's high level of detail...clearly she knows her stuff. Highly recommended if you like fast-paced, entertaining mysteries.
If you like this book, check out a new author I've recently discovered. I highly recommend Thirst by Dania Deschamps.
Rating:  - A LOT of detail for a little ending
I love Linda Fairstein's Alexandra Cooper series. I love all of the characters, how they interact, and how their shared history is included and advanced in each book. Generally speaking, I like the plots of these books as well. This book was a bit of a letdown, however, as the payoff didn't quite make the journey to get there worthwhile. The settings for the crimes in this book were The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. The book included copious details ... Read More
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Copyright © 2003-2008 Gunnar Bengtsson, Poetry Connection. All Rights Reserved.
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743223546
ISBN: 0743223543
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: January 21, 2003
Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: January 21, 2003
Sales Rank: 311142
Studio: Scribner