Carol O'Connell (1) (1947–)

I love Kathy Mallory. The depth of her character is amazing, and each book leaves me wanting more. This one is especially good, perhaps because of the long wait between books. A bit about the characters.

Mallory is an incomplete story - nobody knows her well. Many fear her, others love her, and everyone keeps their distance. Well, except for her partner Riker. And Charles (who is hopelessly in love with her). And her late father's poker playing buddies, who want so much for her. Some call show more her psychopath. But one thing is clear. She has a definite sense of morals and knows no boundaries when it comes to protecting the innocent.

Coco, is a beautiful little red-head with a smile that lights up a room, suffers from Williams syndrome which prompts her to reach out to anyone for a hug putting her life at risk. She has brilliant qualities, such as recognizing any vacuum by sound alone and playing the piano; and can't lace up her shoes or button her clothes. She simply thinks differently.

Mallory gets through to Coco on a deep level, and Charles (friend, therapist, police adviser) wants to protect Coco from Mallory's investigative motives.

There is so much to this book, it's simply quite beautiful to read. Except maybe for the rats. Lots of rats.

The mystery is excellent as always, although the characters in this series are more important than the events. It's a psychological study of the highest level, and more fascinating because we aren't given all the answers. Sometimes there's aren't any. Well, the crime is solved, and repercussions handled well (and by Mallory). But we still know so little about Mallory - it's like peeling an onion one layer at a time. I'd love to see a Mallory book written from her point of view.

My only complain about this story is a disturbing paragraph about Charles Butler at the end of the book. "This summer afternoon would remain in his memory forever, a bookmark to a sad and curious passage that he must return to again and again. Weill into his nineties and long after the death of Kathy Mallory, on every fine, warm day, he would sit in a garden where he would only suffer daisies to be planted." show less

If you're the type of reader who prefers likable, touchy feely main characters, move away from this book (and the entire series). Kathy Mallory is not the character for you. Found living on the streets as a young child, she was taken in and raised by a police officer and his wife, both of whom soon realized that Mallory's sociopathic tendencies required special handling. Mallory does not form relationships like normal people. She doesn't bond; she doesn't chit chat; she doesn't smile; and show more she certainly doesn't laugh. She's like a hand grenade with a loose pin-- Handle With Care. A small portion of her past is revealed in The Man Who Cast Two Shadows, and although readers will be moved to feel compassion towards her, rest assured that Mallory herself will show none to anyone.

The plot is tight and suspenseful, dealing with the woman's death, Mallory's toying with a killer, and a boy who may have telekinetic powers. The setting of New York City could be declared one of the cast of characters. O'Connell shows a touch of poetry now and again in her prose, but the tone of her poetry is bleak. More of the story could be told from Mallory's point of view, and there are a few too many times when we're told about her behavior rather than seeing it for ourselves. All in all, Mallory is like a black hole at the very heart of this book, and if you can withstand her gravitational pull and resist the need for her to change, you are in for a treat involving one of the most fascinating characters in crime fiction. show less

NYPD detective Kathy Mallory has stopped turning up for work and there is a body on the floor of the front room of her apartment. Even Riker, her partner, knows only that Mallory appears to be on the run, travelling west from New York, somewhere on what used to be Route 66. More alarming than the corpse on the floor is the massive list of telephone numbers on the wall of the den. They have lines through them, as if Mallory has been crossing them off. And then 800 miles away, in Chicago, a show more second corpse has been found. Heavy rain is destroying the scene of crime, washing the evidence away. The body is laid out with its arm pointing down Route 80, saying "Follow Me". And then Mallory turns up at the scene of the crime.

Mallory appears to be following a moving caravan of vehicles travelling the Mother Road, Main Street USA, variously known as Route 66, Route 80, and the I-55. Leading them is psychiatrist Paul Magritte, almost like a patriarch leading a lost tribe, except that the cars contain parents of missing children. These people have been gathered from Magritte’s therapy patients and from internet groups. At each point where the caravan stops the parents post pictures of the lost children. As the caravan gathers media attention, so it also attracts more parents. FBI agents join it as do state troopers and local policemen. Old burials of tiny skeletons are discovered along the roadside, and some of the parents are murdered. Mallory is following an agenda of her own: a wad of letters written by the father she never knew as he too followed Route 66. The quest to find missing children, to apprehend a serial killer, blurs with Mallory’s own quest to find her father.

I need to confess first up that I have read only a couple of earlier titles in O’Connell’s Mallory series. This is #9, and while I knew some of the background about Kathy Mallory, found when she was 6 years old in New York’s Grand Central Station, and fostered by NYPD’s Lou Markowitz, those who have read the series will have more knowledge about the central characters than I did. Trying to piece the book together was rather like a jigsaw begun at the four corners without a clear picture of what the middle would look like. Possibly a less determined reader would have given up, but with my focus on the holy grail of this review, I journeyed on. Things got better in the second half of the book, there were aha! moments, little questions posed to which we needed answers, and then the resolution arrived.

Standing back now, I can appreciate the complexity of what O’Connell has done in SHARK MUSIC. At times the image of this growing caravan crawling along Main Street, carrying with it so much heartbreak, and so many hopes that would never be realised, was almost surreal. Soemtimes it was evocative of the wagon trains of an earlier era rolling west. Overlaying all is the growing tension of the serial murderer trawling the caravan looking for his next victim. The reader is required to juggle a multitude of threads, sift clues, and even pose their own questions. Don’t expect SHARK MUSIC to be a quick read, it needs time. show less

This outstanding novel by Carol O'Connell is about a cold case. A teenage boy was killed 20 years prior to the story, and his brother has come home for the first time since the murder. The brother, Oren, is drawn into a quest for truth when he learns that someone has been leaving his brother's bones on the porch of the family home. As Oren investigates, it becomes clear that the question is not who killed his brother, but rather who did not -- everyone involved has secrets and show more motivation.

O'Connell's writing is lyrical and beautiful. Characters are vividly drawn, and it is easy to sympathize with even the most flawed characters because O'Connell relays their hopes, dreams, and thoughts. It is impossible to guess the plot, and in fact sometimes it's necessary to stop and think through the implications of a seemingly trivial detail which is casually dropped into the story.

In addition to the well-done characters and plot, O'Connell's writing also has an element of the unexpected which is delightful. For example, no one will enter the town library. This mentioned several times and little teasing hints as to why are dropped throughout the story. When it is finally revealed why, it makes perfect sense; but who besides O'Connell would include a strange, off-beat detail about a library that no one will enter? The story is littered with such quirks, which reflect the fact that in real life, not everything is cut and dried. People behave strangely, think illogically, and weird events occur.

It's always a delight to read Carol O'Connell, on many different levels, and this book is one of her best. show less