Linda Fairstein

F act: In 1922, Howard Carter, then an itinerant archaeologist who had been combing the Valley of the Kings, discovered one of the largest treasure troves in history. Carter, on a single‑minded quest for nearly two decades, unearthed the tomb of the boy king, the pharaoh Tutankhamen. He found subterranean caverns filled with priceless artifacts, hundreds of items of hammered gold, precious gems, and entire chariots crafted from exotic woods. Among those objects was a priceless figurine, a statuette of the boy king perched on the back of a black panther. The cat, carved from ebony, was molded from exotic resins, its formula known only to the ancient Egyptians.

Fact: For nearly ninety years the priceless artifacts from Carter’s find, including the panther and its golden king, resided in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. Then, in early February 2011, in what became known as the Arab Spring, civil unrest gave way to looting. The museum was breeched and among the items taken was the statuette of the boy king atop the black cat.

Fact: On September 11, 2012, a marauding band of terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, torching the structure and killing four Americans including the U.S. ambassador. For weeks the burned‑out structure languished, largely unguarded, with documents, some of them highly classified, strewn about in the abandoned wreckage.

Got your interest?

For two talented writers like Steve Martini and Linda Fairstein, this was all they needed to start a story.

Paul Madriani is the protagonist of twelve best‑selling novels by Steve Martini, a former journalist and California lawyer. Linda Fairstein was a lawyer, too, a prosecutor for thirty years, and the head of the Sex Crimes Unit of the New York County District Attorney’s Office. Wily prosecutor Alexandra Cooper is her creation. So far there have been fifteen novels featuring Cooper.

Crossing swords at a lawyers’ conference seemed the easiest way for these two characters to connect. Next, an enterprising young reporter returns from Benghazi and files a story about what she may have found in the burned‑out consulate building. When that reporter turns up dead, Madriani and Cooper find themselves launched on a mad chase in search of the killer and the golden boy king.

It’s a legal thriller for the twenty‑first century.

From two masters.