Killing Critics (Kathleen Mallory Series #3)

by Carol O'Connell

Overview

NYPD sergeant Kathleen Mallory, a wild child turned policewoman, possessed of a ferocious intelligence and a unique inner compass of right and wrong, is about to be sorely tested.

Killing Critics begins with a discreet murder - the almost unnoticed death of a hack artist at a gallery opening - but quickly connects with a much more brutal crime - a twelve-year-old double homicide and dismemberment originally investigated by Mallory's now deceased adoptive father, Louis Markowitz. A quick confession ended that case, but as Mallory probes into the new murder, the ghosts of the old will not be still. She finds herself traveling in an intricately connected world of envy, greed, and lethal passions: a place where no relationship is what it seems, and the secrets, very deep and very dark indeed, strike closer and closer to home. By the end, she will come to know the truth - but the truth may be the most dangerous illusion of all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101458754
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/04/2010
Series:	A Mallory Novel , #3
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	559 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Carol O'Connell is the author of eight previous Mallory novels, including the national bestseller Winter House, and of Judas Child.

Editorial Reviews

Readers, beware! That sly (and oh so gifted) Carol O'Connell is just as cunning as her beautiful, near-sociopathic heroine, Kathy Mallory, creeping up on unsuspecting readers with softly caressing words and languidly flowing sentences, then sucker-punching them with shockingly explicit violence that's as vivid as it is grisly. In her third and most stunning book, O'Connell follows NYPD investigator Mallory, who, with the aid of old pals Riker, Coffey, and, of course, faithful admirer Charles Butler, is determined to solve the brutal "art as death" murder of an untalented but highly touted artist-critic. Mallory believes the case is the work of the same killer who, 12 years earlier, hacked a young artist and a talented ballerina to pieces. The case is as baffling and intricate as any Mallory has faced, with art critics, bag ladies, madmen, and mafioso playing key roles. Despite warnings from her superiors to butt out and back off, she persists and single-handedly solves the case. But as mesmerizing as the murder case is, it's heartless, soulless Mallory herself--computer genius, street fighter, provocative waif, peerless investigator, manipulative beauty---who's absolutely the star of this brilliant thriller. O'Connell's well-nigh flawless plotting and incandescent writing play important supporting roles, and the heart-stopping, devastating ending is worth a thousand curtain calls. Another triumph for this truly gifted writer!

Emily Melton

The murder of artist Dean Starr, an inoffensive mediocrity stabbed at a reception at Avril Koozeman's trendy gallery, would be no big deal to anyone—other than fans of the more outré varieties of performance art (the body, labeled with a card reading "DEAD," fools dozens of visitors before a jaundiced rent-a-cop realizes how accurate the label is)—if the performance-art angle, coupled with a much more explicit clue, didn't point the finger at an unsolved 12-year-old case. Back in the glory days of Inspector Louis Markowitz, up-and-coming artist Peter Ariel and ballet hopeful Aubry Gilette had been hacked to death with an axe and their bodies scrambled together in an even more ghoulish aesthetic exercise. Markowitz is dead now, but his adopted daughter, Sgt. Kathy Mallory, is determined to reopen the case, and nothing—not the intransigence of art critic J.L. Quinn; or the antics of columnist Andrew Bliss, who camps out on Bloomingdale's roof with a bullhorn as a fashion-advisor terrorist; or the pretensions of critic-turned-Public Works Committee head Emma Sue Hollaran, liposucked within an inch of her life; or the opposition of her corrupt boss, Chief Harry Blakely—is going to stop her.

Mallory displays such diverse skills—the former street kid is a computer genius who dominates press conferences, never sleeps, dresses in a trice, and offers to deck an aging ballet teacher—that she's in danger of becoming a Wild Child paragon. But it's hard to resist a third case (The Man Who Cast Two Shadows, 1995, etc.) that's as blazingly original as her first two.

Kirkus Reviews