Linda Fairstein
For three decades, from 1972 until 2002, Fairstein served in the office of the New York County District Attorney, where she was chief of the country’s pioneering Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit for twenty-six years. In that position, she supervised the investigation and trial of cases involving sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and homicides arising out of those crimes.
Fairstein is an honors graduate of Vassar College (1969) and the University of Virginia School of Law (1972). In 1998, several of Fairstein’s law school classmates established a scholarship fund in her honor, supporting law students pursuing careers in the public sector.
She received dozens of awards for her legal work and advocacy, and in many instances was the first woman to be so honored. These include the Federal Bar Council’s Emory Buckner Award for Public Service and the UJA Federation’s Proskauer Award. For her groundbreaking work on behalf of victims of violence, Fairstein received Columbia University’s School of Medicine Award for Excellence; the Anti-Violence Project’s “Courage” Award; Glamour Magazine’s Woman of the Year Award; the American Heart Association Women of Courage Award, and many similar honors. In 2010, Fairstein was awarded the New York Women’s Agenda Lifetime Achievement Award for her leadership in the field of domestic violence.
In 1993, Linda Fairstein published her first book – a non-fiction work entitled SEXUAL VIOLENCE: Our War Against Rape – which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Fairstein is the author of eighteen crime novels, published by Dutton, featuring Manhattan prosecutor Alexandra Cooper. KILLER LOOK – was published in July, 2016, and like the fourteen which preceded it became an “instant”
New York Times bestseller. DEADFALL will be published in July, 2017. Many of the books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
In November, 2016, Fairstein debuted a second series, for middle-grade readers, featuring a twelve-year old sleuth named Devlin Quick. That novel, INTO THE LION’S DEN, was inspired by the author’s childhood devotion to the famed Nancy Drew series. The second one, DIGGING FOR TROUBLE, will be published in November, 2017.
Fairstein was awarded the Nero Wolfe Award for Excellence in Crime Writing in 2008, and in 2010 received the Silver Bullet Award of the International Thriller Writers.
Fairstein is a trustee of Vassar College. She is on the boards of several non-profit organizations: Safe Horizon, which is the country’s largest victim advocacy organization; God’s Love We Deliver, which feeds seriously ill New Yorkers; and she leads the national project to end the rape evidence kit backlog at the Joyful Heart Foundation. She is the board chair emeritus of the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, and is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Fairstein lives in Manhattan and is married to Michael Goldberg.