Linda Fairstein - Bad blood

“Buy me two drinks and ask me then. If I can hold on to the glass without shaking, without spilling a drop of my Scotch-you’ll be forgiven.”

“What do you think, Mercer? I got the best seat in the house, don’t I?”

The train rocked from side to side and Mike squeezed my hand again.

Beneath the streets of New York is a multitude of labyrinthine systems, dug deep into the bedrock of Manhattan Island, which give life to the city above. Subway tubes, gas mains, housing for electrical wiring, sewers and shafts of every variety-as well as the two antiquated tunnels that have carried billions of gallons of fresh water daily, for almost a century, from upstate to the five boroughs-were all built by a small cadre of construction workers known as sandhogs. They have not only created this underground kingdom, but they are the only men ever to see most of it.

I first read about the plans for City Tunnel Number 3-and those who have died making it-in a riveting article called “City of Water” by David Grann, in The New Yorker magazine (September 1, 2003). Two years later, Lesley Stahl and her 60 Minutes crew took the Alimak cage dozens of stories down and went into the dangerous arms of the tunnel’s building site to explore this brilliant feat of modern engineering…and led the way for me to follow.

Nonfiction works that provided fascinating historical information include David McCullough’s The Great Bridge; Paul E. Delaney’s Sandhogs; Gerard T. Koeppel’s Water for Gotham; Lorraine B. Diehl’s Subways; and Edward F. Bergman’s Woodlawn Remembers.

I lost a great friend when Bohn Vergari died-way too young-and it was his beloved wife, Jane, who suggested to me that I research the lifesaving work of the medical teams at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. My special thanks to Dr. Ann Jakubowski for her wisdom and courage.

Thanks to everyone (and I do mean everyone) at Scribner and Pocket Books, and especially to Colin Harrison, whose guidance and insights are invaluable. Boundless gratitude to my great friend Esther Newberg at ICM, along with her trusty aides, Kari Stuart and Chris Earle.

This book is for Hilary Hale of Time Warner/Little, Brown, who found Alex Cooper shortly after her “birth,” and has introduced my books to readers in more places than I ever dreamed possible. Hilary’s intelligence and kindness, her editorial eye and firm friendship, have been a treasured partnership for more than a decade.

And once again, to Justin, who-this time-has truly given me his heart.

LINDA FAIRSTEIN, America ’s foremost legal expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, led the pioneering Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan for twenty-five years, leaving in 2002 to write, lecture, and continue her advocacy for victims of violent crime. A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the International Society of Barristers, she is a graduate of Vassar College and the University of Virginia School of Law. Her first novel, Final Jeopardy, which introduced the character Alexandra Cooper, was published in 1996 to critical and commercial acclaim. All eight Alex Cooper novels also achieved international bestseller status, and her most recent, Death Dance, debuted at #4 on the New York Times bestseller list. Fairstein’s nonfiction book, Sexual Violence, was a New York Times Notable Book in 1994. She lives with her husband in Manhattan and on Martha’s Vineyard. Her website is www.lindafairstein.com.