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Carol O'Connell

    May 26, 1947

    Carol O'Connell is an American author celebrated for her gripping crime fiction. Her novels masterfully explore the darker aspects of the human condition and societal undercurrents, employing intricate plotting and a distinctively atmospheric style. O'Connell's work is marked by its propulsive pacing and the nuanced, often complex, development of her characters, immersing readers in suspenseful investigations.

    Carol O'Connell
    Shark Music
    Killing Critics
    The Chalk Girl
    Stone Angel
    Judas Child
    Shell Game
    • Shell Game

      • 424 pages
      • 15 hours of reading

      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.

      Shell Game
    • Sadie's purple bike was found abandoned at the bus stop. Then her friend disappeared, which led the police to propose a runaway theory to the press. But State Police Investigator Rouge Kendall wasn't convinced, thinking back 15 years to the imprisonment of Father Paul Marie for a similar crime.

      Judas Child
    • 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.

      Stone Angel
    • The Chalk Girl

      • 448 pages
      • 16 hours of reading
      4.1(79)Add rating

      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

      The Chalk Girl
    • Killing Critics

      • 344 pages
      • 13 hours of reading
      4.0(2110)Add rating

      'The new wave of art was first heralded by the graffiti artist who attacked the city walls - artist attacks architecture. Then it progressed to the vandal artist who scarred the art of others -artist attacks art. And now we see a further escalation in the performance - art murder of Dean Starr - artist attacks artist. This is the new wave - Art Terrorism' Bliss was not celebrated for his radical opinions, and no one suspected he might know something about a terrible crime committed twelve years earlier in one of Avril Koozeman's galleries. Inspector Louis Markowitz, who commanded the Special Crime Section in New York, had worked on that original double homicide, and now his adopted daughter, Detective Sergeant Kathy Mallory, wants to reopen the old case - against the Department's wishes. A number of people in high places are also very keen that their secrets remain buried with the dead.

      Killing Critics
    • Shark Music

      • 448 pages
      • 16 hours of reading

      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.

      Shark Music
    • Blind Sight

      • 432 pages
      • 16 hours of reading
      3.8(25)Add rating

      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

      Blind Sight
    • 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.

      Mallory's oracle
    • 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.

      The Man who Cast Two Shadows
    • The Jury Must Die

      • 432 pages
      • 16 hours of reading
      3.9(3115)Add rating

      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.

      The Jury Must Die