The first book in the Kathy Mallory series. Some confusion in the plotting, but it's not about plot.

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Product Description

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. AB. K.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118019 in Books
• Published on: 1995-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780515116472
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Serial killing, insider trading, the occult and the vices of wealthy Manhattan widows are the themes that collide in this heavy-handed first novel starring an unusual policewoman. Kathleen Mallory was an 11-year-old thief living on the streets of New York City when Detective Louis Markowitz rescued her and raised her in his home. The novel opens a decade later when Markowitz, a widower, is found dead beside the third in a series of Gramercy Park dowagers slashed and murdered in broad daylight. Mallory, whose early criminal instincts and keen intelligence have been loosely channeled into computer science, is forced to take a leave from the department and decides to seek vengeance on her own. O'Connell peoples her tale with colorful characters, both Mallory's allies and suspects, but there is little nuance to any of them. Particularly lacking in dimension is the heroine herself, who proceeds through the plot with a robot-like, if intense, predictability; the voices of Markowitz's friends repeatedly refer to Mallory's brilliance and appeal, but little in her actions suggests notable insight or charm. The broadly stroked narrative of this much-publicized debut has commercial potential, but the absence of subtlety or consistency suggests a short shelf life. 50,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB selections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The investigation of a series of murders of wealthy, elderly women from the Gramercy Park area intensifies when Louis Markowitz, the head of the NYPD Special Crimes Section, is found dead with the third victim. Kathleen Mallory, his adopted daughter and a policewoman assigned to office duty, is beautiful, intelligent, fiercely independent, and obsessed with finding the killer. Mallory's computer skills supplement the street-survival savvy she learned before her adoption and the "wall" of clues and case details left by Markowitz. All of this leads her to seances, magic acts, dysfunctional families, insider trading, and, eventually, the knowledge her father had at his death. Mallory is the major, but not the only, complex and successfully realized character to emerge in this skillfull debut, which has the international publishing world's attention. Highly recommended.
--V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
First-time author O'Connell is off to a flying start. Putnam has paid a whopping $800,000 for American rights to this novel and another one. (In a reversal of the normal pattern, New Yorker O'Connell sold her novel to a British publisher before selling it here.) She's getting a megabucks advance, along with plenty of prepub publicity, and the book will benefit from a 50,000 first printing, a national ad campaign, and selection as a featured title of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Is the hype justified? The answer is a resounding yes. O'Connell's writing is stunning in its luminosity, originality, simplicity, and power. Her plot is ingenious, inventive, and enigmatic, and her characters sparkle with originality and charm. Heroine Kathleen Mallory was a wild street urchin-orphan who was adopted by cop Louis Markowitz and his wife, Helen. Tamed by their love, Mallory grows up to become a cop like her adopted father. But not for her the everyday cop world of boring surveillance, gritty street crime, and dead stiffs. Her bastion is megabytes and motherboards, and with her dazzling talent for computers, there's not a network, mailbox, or bulletin board she can't crack. But when Louis is murdered during the investigation of a serial killer, Mallory leaves the safety of her electronic world to single-mindedly seek out and systematically destroy the killer. There may not be enough superlatives to describe O'Connell's book, but there's no doubt it belongs on the shelves of every library. One of the top reads of the year. Emily Melton

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Customer Reviews

Hunh?
"Mallory's Oracle" is a dense, wordy novel that covers a lot of characters and plot threads (insider trading, seances, street life, magic tricks, computers, police procedurals). So much so that I was unable to keep track of what was happening. Many of the characters (Coffey, Riker, the old ladies and the "bad guys") are not fully fleshed out. The other characters, with the exception of Charles, Markowitz, Helen and the Rabbi (and two of them are dead) are unsympathic and humorless. The author tried to pull all the plot elements together in the end, but it got very convoluted. O'Connell has a talent for writing, but reading this morass of a novel was not an enjoyable experience.

GREAT intoduction to a series I can't wait to read
This reader was immediately sucked into this fast paced murder mystery. There were many suspects presented in this serial killer storyline and the suspense was well plotted. However, the characters in this book were the real gems. They almost became flesh and blood before my eyes as the author painted such loving images of not altogether loveable characters. First off, Kathy Mallory is a tough as nails young cop trying to avenge her sort of adopted father's death - Markowitz - and oh by the way, she was a runaway who was "found" on the streets by him when she was around 11. Her terrible and traumatic background is hinted at but never revealed. Mallory is unconditionally loved by Markowitz and his wife and even though both of these characters are dead as we read this book, the reader can see them as relevant characters and we feel her loss. Then there's Markowitz' band of poker buddies (The Rabbi, the Lawyer and the Doctor) who are three dimensional characters as well. Last but not least, there's her two sidekicks of Charles Butler (a modern day Ichobod Crane figure) and another cop named Riker(a drunkard with redeeming qualities). Sure her characters are flawed, but they all have principals that they hold true to and all of them can be admired. Kudos to the author for her skill in presenting such intriguing characters that seem so real. As soon as I finished this book I immediately picked up the next one in this series (The Man Who Cast Two Shadows).

Not your traditional police procedural!
Sometimes, police procedurals are a dime a dozen. As fun as it is to get into the minutiae of a fictional cop's life, it can be a little formulaic after awhile. The characters get a little cookie cutter. You know each of them: the alcoholic but good-hearted cop, the green rookie, and the hardened police captain.

Mallory's Oracle tries to make you think that it's just another procedural. And if you start to believe that, if you fall for that ruse, you will be wildly surprised.

In a genre ruled by plot, character-driven mysteries really surprise us when they come along. Now, I know that I'm a decade behind on this one - the book came out in '94, I think. But, for me, discovering Carol O'Conner is like coming across Elizabeth George and Laurie R. King for the first time. It's taking characters we know - the New York cop, the British Inspector, the consulting detective - and delving deep into their soul to see what makes them tick.

That's what happens in Mallory's Oracle. We dive deep into the soul of Kathleen Mallory. She is a deep, interesting, unpredictable, and enigmatic character. I really liked her "partner" Charles and the forays into the world of magic and mediums were great. She doesn't hand you the story on a silver platter - she makes you work for it. But trust me, it's worth the effort. This is a great start to what looks to be a great series.