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The New York Times
Thursday, December 12, 2002 (metro section, page 2)

Where Black Orchids Grow

After a week's worth of headlines that were a reminder of what she once did, LINDA FAIRSTEIN collected a prize for what she does now.

Ms. Fairstein was chief of the Sex Crimes Unit in the Manhattan district attorney's office and oversaw the prosecution of five teenagers convicted in the Central Park jogger rape case.

Last Saturday, the day after the headlines said that prosecutors who had reviewed DNA and other new evidence asked that the convictions be dismissed, Ms. Fairstein was given a Nero award for her novel, "The Deadhouse," by a group called the Wolfe Pack - fans of the writer Rex Stout and the fictional detective he created, Nero Wolfe.

Ms. Fairstein, who left the district attorney's office in February in her 30th year there, picked up her award at a "black orchid banquet" at the restaurant Bouterin in Manhattan. (Wolfe, as his fans know, lived in a brownstone and raised orchids on the roof.) Ms. Fairstein's book "was the best of the ones submitted this year," said STEPHANNIE RUSSO, the chairman of the award committee