Carol O'Connell is een Amerikaanse auteur die wordt gevierd om haar meeslepende misdaadfictie. Haar romans verkennen meesterlijk de duisterdere aspecten van de menselijke conditie en maatschappelijke stromingen, met gebruikmaking van complexe plotontwikkelingen en een onderscheidend sfeervolle stijl. O'Connells werk wordt gekenmerkt door zijn voortstuwende tempo en de genuanceerde, vaak complexe, ontwikkeling van haar personages, waardoor lezers worden ondergedompeld in spannende onderzoeken.
It is three days before Christmas, and two young girls have disappeared from the local academy. This hasn't happened for fifteen years, since Rouge Kendall's twin sister was murdered. The killer was found, but now Rouge, twenty-five and a policeman, is forced to wonder: Was he really the one? Also wondering is a former classmate named Ali Cray, a forensic Psychologist with scars of her own. The pattern is the same, she says: a child called out to meet a friend. The friend is the bait, the Judas child, and is quickly killed, but the primary victim lives longer...until Christmas Day.
Tijdens de opening van een tentoonstelling in The Koozeman Gallery in New York wordt kunstcriticus Dean Starr vermoord. Op zijn lichaam wordt een visitekaartje aangetroffen met daarop het woord dood - een en ander wekt de indruk van een verrassende en dodelijke vorm van performance art. Ondanks de aanwezigheid van ruim honderd genodigden heeft niemand iets gezien of gehoord. De politie staat voor een raadsel, maar vermoedt dat de dader in de kunstwereld moet worden gezocht. De moord herinnert de sympathieke rechercheur Kathy Mallory, computerexpert bij de afdeling bijzondere misdrijven, aan de onopgeloste dubbele moord waaraan haar pleegvader Louis Markowitz twaalf jaar eerder werkte. In deze gruwelijke zaak werden de ledematen van twee jonge geliefden als een kunstwerk gerangschikt. Als Mallory zich vastbijt in het onderozk naar de koelbloedige moordenaar, wordt ze van bovenhand gesommeerd haar onspanningen te staken. Maar dat strookt niet met Mallory's karakter...
O'Connell ( Judas Child ) deftly demonstrates her own sleight of hand as she recounts NYPD detective Kathleen Mallory's investigation of the "accidental" death of magician Oliver Tree, who died while trying to recreate on live TV the late Max Candle's most famous trick, in which a man survives the fire of four crossbows. As Mallory capitalizes on her friendship with Candle's beloved cousin, Charles Butler, to delve into a WW II mystery involving a group of elderly magicians, all colleagues of Candle and Tree, hints of Mallory's inner life begin to emerge. Once a street kid, the coldly efficient detective comprehends better than most the soul-deadening choices these men made to survive during the war and the cycle of repentance and retribution that have set a deadly game in motion. Mallory is drawn in by the seductive Malakhai, a master of misdirection who is always accompanied by the illusion of his long-dead wife, Louisa. While the detective, in search of answers, uses her high-tech skills to manipulate data banks and to amass information, Charles Butler is in his basement, trying to put together Max's great trick. Meanwhile, the stalwart Sergeant Riker, Mallory's unofficial guardian and staunch defender, is on call. O'Connell adroitly entwines the excitement of Manhattan's Thanksgiving Day parade with the world of illusion and the anguish of war. Her tough realism and hypnotic prose will leave readers eager for more.
The latest in an evocatively written series featuring free-spirited NYPD sergeant Kathleen Mallory has this odd, intriguing cop taking her act on the road to the rural Louisiana town where she was born. She's trying, at long last, to reach closure in the mysterious death of her mother -- stoned to death by villagers 17 years previous -- and must sift through the creepy, dangerous layers of the past to get answers.
Krimi. A little girl is abandoned in Central Park - her uncle's body in a tree not far away. Recognizing a kindred spirit in the girl, NYPD detective Kathy Mallory takes the case. But her investigation soon leads to a trail of murder and blackmail spanning 15 years
Detective Kathy Mallory finds herself hunting a killer like none she has come
across before in this acclaimed thriller by New York Times bestselling author
Carol O'Connell.
Carol O'Connell's latest novel featuring Special Crimes Unit Detective Kathy
Mallory has an almost Dickensian feel. In her own way, O'Connell is as quirky
and elusive as Mallory. [F]or those readers looking to escape the usual police
procedurals, she's the ticket Chicago Tribune
When Kathleen Mallory was ten she was a street kid and a thief. Then a cop called Markowitz took her home to her wife to civalize her. . . . Now Mallory is in charge of a complex database and a police officer herself, and someone has just murdered the man she considers her father -the only man she has ever loved. More used to the company of computers than people, Mallory descends into the urban nightmare of New York, to hunt down a cold-blooded killer. MALLORY'S ORACLE is a dangerous chase through the city's underworld, down the fibre-optic cables of high-tech computer networks and behind the blinds of genteel Gramercy Park - and an investigation into the chilly heart of it's damaged and elusive heroine.
Brilliant computer hacker and NYPD sergeant Kathleen Mallory is forced to test the limits of her intelligence when she confronts a deadly killer who strikes close to home in more ways than one. Reprint.
After bringing in a unanimous and very dubious acquittal in a murder case, only three of the original jurors remain alive. And someone, known only as the 'Reaper' because of the signature of a bloody scythe left at the crime scenes, is clearly determined to make a clean sweep of the terrified survivors. Detective Sgt. Riker, although on paid sick leave after a teenage psychopath pumped four bullets into his chest, has a keen but unofficial interest in the case. And his NYPD Special Crimes partner, Kathy Mallory, orphan, sociopath and computer genius, is resolute that there will be no more personal defections in her life, and determined to discover the identity of the killer before he, or she makes a complete mockery of justice. Meanwhile, on his increasingly popular radio show, Ian Zachary, plays a sick and dangerous game - Hunt the Juror.