The Bone Vault

Linda Fairstein

Alex Cooper is attending a gala at the Natural History Museum in New York City when she is called out for a strange discovery. A woman's body is found wrapped up like a mummy in an old Egyptian sarcophagus. But the woman has only been dead around five or six months, not thousands of years. Coop is the Sex Crimes Unit Assistant District Attorney and gets called in on murder cases involving women in case it included a sex crime. Police detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace are right there with her, although Wallace is waiting for his wife to go into labor any time now, so may have to leave them.

They learn the woman was an intern at the Cloisters, another museum on the Manhattan Island. She wasn't missed because she had turned in her resignation to return to her home. She died by arsenic poisoning. All the indicators towards her death return to the Museum of Art, the Natural History Museum, and the Cloisters. But who wanted her dead, any why?

The Bone Vault takes on three themes. There is the murder mystery along with the poisoning which gives Linda Fairstein a chance to explain forensic medicine and the discoveries that are now being made. There is the side story of a young teen aged girl who is mixed up with a bad crowd and trying to protect herself from her mother's wrath, an older boyfriend, and a girlfriend who is also a rival.

Also, this set in the 2002 spring post September 11, so a portion of the novel is set aside for Coop to recount that terrible day from her ringside seat and the effects after to her and her friends. The 9-11 theme is done very well, with (I feel) a proper amount of feeling and empathy without taking over the novel from the murder.

The reason for the murder is off the wall. It is from a thread that doesn't start until about half way through the book. I found it unconvincing. Yet overall I enjoyed The Bone Vault despite the weak plot.

The Series:

Final Jeopardy
Likely to Die
Cold Hit
The Deadhouse
The Bone Vault
The Kills
Entombed
Death Dance
Bad Blood
Killer Heat
Lethal Legacy
Hell Gate