Death Dance

By: Linda Fairstein

Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat

New York Times bestselling author Linda Fairstein takes readers behind the scenes of New York City's theater world -- from Lincoln Center to the lights of Broadway -- in a riveting novel, rich with her trademark blend of cutting-edge legal issues, skillful detective work, and heart-stopping suspense.

Teaming up with longtime friends -- NYPD's Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace -- Assistant DA Alex Cooper investigates the disappearance of world-famous dancer Natalya Galinova, who has suddenly vanished backstage at Lincoln Center's Metropolitan Opera House -- during a performance.

The three colleagues are soon drawn into the machinations of New York City's secretive theatrical community, where ambition takes many forms, including those most deadly. Among Galinova's lovers is Joe Berk, the colorful, strong-willed boss of the Berk Organization, one of four family companies that own all the legitimate theaters on Broadway. The aging ballerina was using Berk to help revive her career at the time of her disappearance.

Cooper, Chapman, and Wallace go underground and backstage at the Met, explore Berk's unusual apartment on top of the Belasco Theatre with its rumored ghostly resident, and then discover bizarre circumstances at City Center, which has a peculiar history not one of them knew about until now.

Within the glamorous but sordid inner sanctums of the Broadway elite, the team confronts the ruthless power brokers who control both the stars and the stages where they appear. They meet Joe's niece Mona Berk, who is mounting a vicious campaign to extract her share of the family fortune, and stunning starlet Lucy DeVore, whose beauty may be her fatal undoing. Chet Dobbis is the artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera, and therefore privy to the most scandalous exploits among its famous inhabitants. He also knows every inch of the labyrinthine building into which the ballerina disappeared...

Meanwhile, Alex is working on a very different case, using a creative technique to nab a physician who has been drugging women in order to assault them. As Dr. Selim Sengor eludes capture, Alex must navigate the new investigative world of DFSA -- drug-facilitated sexual assault -- intent on proving him guilty.

Complicating her quest is the explosive legal and ethical dilemma of using the existing DNA databank to solve new cases. Can Alex convince a judge to let her prosecute a man for a violent crime using DNA that was collected for a prior case in which he was never charged? Or do the suspect's civil rights prevent law enforcement from keeping his DNA on file to be used against him at any future time?

Death Dance is a spellbinding thriller combining a former prosecutor's fresh insight into hot-button legal issues with the unique history and spectacle of New York theater, and its shocking twists make this novel Linda Fairstein's most chilling adventure yet.

Audio review

Main character sound like she was sucking a candy. Her voice did not fit the character in the many Linda Fairstein books I have read

A good story.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

If I could, I would of put emphasis on the opening crimes and put the Ballet behind the scenes.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

No.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Barbara is usually fine sometimes better, But this was the worst one.

Could you see Death Dance being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

NO!

Another goodie.

I hope these books continue in this vein. It is easy to get into them even though I am not reading them in the order they were written.

A thriller

Enjoyed the mystery plot as well as all the background information on Broadway. The author shared a wealth of information about prosecuting the sex crimes as well as police procedures. Loved it.

So difficult to listen to this narrator

The story was fine, but this narrator is so hard to listen to. I've listened to a lot of books narrated by this reader, and I like her voice and range, but the constant swallowing or whatever noise she keeps making that sounds like swishing spit around is extremely distracting!