Dead Line

by J. Madison Davis

Book Overview

When a woman's body is found at the bottom of a hotel air shaft in Times Square, it looks like a routine suicide. Enter Detectives. Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green. Something about the woman seems out of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743497988
• ISBN13: 9780743497985
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: iBooks
• Length: 301 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Law and Order

Reading this book was like watching an episode of Law and Order on TV. If you like the TV series, you'll love this book.

A good alternative to the show

When I saw this book I immediately ordered it. As a big fan of the show I was hoping to get a whole new perspective on the charactors and the show. Since the show does practically no development of the charactors' personal life I was desperate to read about them. Unfortunately there was very little here. Any future books would be so much more interesting if this was included. What the book did expose were the various thoughts of the charactors as they reacted to different situations. The instance when the suspect is caught by Serena staring at her legs and how she uses it later in the book is a perfect example. Here's to more Law & Order books but with more exploration of the lives of Greene, McCoy and Southerlyn. I have a feeling that Briscoe's nights involve a lean corned beef sandwich, a Zantac and interestingly enough, an hour in front of the TV watching a show like Law & Order.

Lives Up to the Law & Order Franchise

Purchased this book while on vacation--was browsing through the bookstore's mystery section and it caught my eye, because I'm a fan of the television series. So, let me say, that I felt this book lived up to what I expected of it--it was like reading an episode of Law & Order. Now, to the typical mystery reader, this may not be a good thing. If you are not familiar with the series, you should know before reading this book that the mystery does not follow a neat and clear path (and I'm not giving anything away by saying this...I'm just generalizing the series, honest). And, only part of the book is the mystery of whodunnit; the rest is the cops and lawyers putting together their case. So, if you're not an L & O watcher, be prepared for more details than the ordinary off-the-shelf murder mystery. Now, if you ARE a fan of the series, you will be pleased to know that the characters we know and love are drawn out, I felt, exactly as they are in the show. I could practically hear Lennie Briscoe's punchy remarks and Ed Green's computer know-how in the dialogue (Green even "Googles" something or other). Serena Southerlyn, Arthur Branch, Anita Van Buren, Emil Skoda, and--my favorite--Jack McCoy are perfectly portrayed as well. In fact, this is the best part of the novel, watching these characters interact. Because there is actually even MORE there than in the TV show. You get a few side glimpses into the characters, like McCoy's womanizing behavior when it comes to his assistant DAs, and you hear Southerlyn's thoughts as a suspect eyes her legs. This is more than what you get on the show, when the dialogue is all you have to go on. For this reason, I know Law & Order viewers will enjoy this book. But I don't think you need to like the show to like the book. The storyline is solid. It's not world-class literature. But I didn't expect it to be so. I hope I come across more Law & Order books. This one was gripping. I can't say that about many other books based on TV.

Solid mystery!

This book was an agreeable surprise. No flimsy, paper-thin typical tv tie-in plot here! Instead, it offers an intriguing mystery investigation and lots of surprises in the courtroom. I thought it followed the format of the show pretty well,and Davis replicates the dialogue of some of the characters exactly on the mark. There's plenty of insiderism about the seamier side of book publishing, as well. In fact, the farther the story progressed, the more it held my interest. And at the end, I couldn't put it down. Law & Order fans will probably love it,no matter what, but anyone who enjoys a good courtroom mystery should give it a try.