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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
    Blind Sight
    Shell Game
    Shark Music
    Killing Critics
    The Chalk Girl
    Stone Angel
    • Etwas ist faul in diesem Theater am New Yorker Broadway. Erst gruselt sich eine Zuschauerin bei einer Premiere im Saal zu Tode, dann wird der Autor des Stückes in der ersten Reihe umgebracht. »Zum Sterben schön« titelt die Presse über das Stück, doch zum Lachen ist niemandem zumute. Hinter den Kulissen trifft Detective Mallory auf geballtes Zwielicht: einen abgehalfterten Hollywoodstar, eine Hauptdarstellerin auf Koks, ein ziemlich unheimliches Zwillingspaar und einen Ghostwriter, der im Verborgenen die Strippen zieht. Was ist Wahrheit, was Fiktion? Kaum beginnt Mallory zu ahnen, dass das Massaker, um das es in dem Stück geht, gar nicht mal so ausgedacht sein könnte, da scheint auch ihr eine Rolle in dem Drama zugedacht – als die nächste Tote.

      Es geschah im Dunkeln2017
      2.8
    • Blind Sight

      • 432 pages
      • 16 hours of reading

      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 Sight2016
      3.8
    • It Happens in the Dark

      • 416 pages
      • 15 hours of reading

      The reviews called it 'a play to die for' after the woman was found dead in the front row. It didn't seem so funny the next night, when another body was found - this time the playwright's, his throat slashed. Detective Kathy Mallory takes over, but no matter what she asks, no one seems to be giving her a straight answer. Every night, an unseen backstage hand chalks up line changes and messages on a blackboard. And the ghostwriter is now writing Mallory into the play itself, a play about a long-ago massacre that may not be at all fictional.

      It Happens in the Dark2014
      3.3
    • The Chalk Girl

      • 448 pages
      • 16 hours of reading

      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 Girl2012
      4.1
    • Two teenage brothers go into the woods one day; only one comes back. What happened to the younger brother remains a mystery, until twenty years later, when the older brother, comes home after many years and begins to unravel the mystery when human remains keep appearing. Is Josh coming home bone by bone?

      Bone by Bone. Tödliche Geschenke, englische Ausgabe2009
      3.4
    • 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 Music2009
      3.9
    • Verdict assassin

      • 382 pages
      • 14 hours of reading

      Après avoir rendu un verdict qui acquitte à l'unanimité l'auteur d'un homicide à Chicago, sept des dix jurés sont assassinés. Le " faucheur ", puisque c'est la signature qu'il laisse en lettres de sang sur la scène des crimes, paraît déterminé. Et les trois survivants, terrifiés, se voient de surcroît faire l'objet d'un jeu macabre imaginé par l'animateur d'une radio new-yorkaise : la chasse aux jurés.En congé maladie après avoir pris quatre balles en pleine poitrine, le sergent Riker se découvre tout de suite un profond intérêt pour cette affaire. Quant à sa coéquipière, l'inspecteur Kathy Mallory, elle est plus que jamais déterminée à démasquer ce tueur qui s'amuse à tourner en dérision le système judiciaire par sa folie meurtrière...

      Verdict assassin2006
      2.0
    • Winter House

      • 368 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      In this riveting thriller from New York Times bestselling author Carol O'Connell, New York City officer Kathleen Mallory purges a woman of her mysterious past—and the flesh-and-blood ghosts of a violent family legacy. At first, NYPD detective Kathleen Mallory thinks the case is simple: a burglar caught in the act and stabbed with an ice pick by a vulnerable homeowner. Except that the dead man was not a burglar, but a hired killer. And the homeowner is the most famous missing child in NYPD history, believed kidnapped more than sixty years ago after the massacre of her entire family...by an ice pick. As Mallory investigates, an astonishing story emerges, one of murderous greed and family horror, abandonment and loss, revenge and twisted love—and a terrifying secret that has yet to claim its final victim.

      Winter House2005
      3.9
    • The Jury Must Die

      • 432 pages
      • 16 hours of reading

      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 Die2004
      3.9
    • New York City policewoman Kathy Mallory investigates the murder of a prostitute named Sparrow, a woman who had taken her in many years ago only to betray her, as part of a crime that seems to mimic one that happened two decades earlier.

      Crime School2002
      3.8
    • 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 Game2000
      3.9
    • Judas Child

      • 340 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      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.

      Judas Child1998
      3.8
    • 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 Angel1998
      4.1
    • Killing Critics

      • 344 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      '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 Critics1997
      4.0
    • 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 Shadows1996
      3.9
    • Mallory's Oracle

      • 336 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      Escaping from the streets of New York when a kind police sergeant takes her in, Kathleen Mallory grows up to become a proud member of the NYPD and embarks on a dangerous case to find her father's murderer. Reprint.

      Mallory's Oracle1994
      3.9