This is a break-the-mold detective story, an incredible debut for O'Connell and a blessing to female detective fans everywhere. Sgt. Kathleen Mallory, a computer hacker for the NYPD, started life as a wild child on New York City's streets. She was adopted by police detective Louis Markowitz and his wife, Helen, but the happy years with them have merely laid a civilized veneer over what is still a semi-savage product of the urban jungle. At the book's opening, Mallory is an orphan again: Helen Markowitz died years before and Detective Markowitz has just been felled by a serial killer. Mallory buries him and then, while on compassionate leave, methodically tracks the killer. One of this book's key pleasures is the high level of intelligence and unpredictability exhibited by all the main characters, whether it's Mallory, the killer, the chief of police, the old ladies who get their kicks from sÇances and playing the stock market, or Charles Butler, Mallory's unwitting new detective partner, father figure, and potential love interest. Mallory isn't the only one struggling to adjust to civilized society: There's a millionaire with an IQ of 187 who can't figure out how to get food out of cans; a young girl, who has just inherited a fortune, has to panhandle for subway fare. The heart of the book is made up of magical illusions, theatrical performances that pass for reality, emotional and media-related distortions. Nothing in this world of wealthy dowagers on Gramercy Park is what it seems. It is up to Mallory, Butler, and even Detective Markowitz's ghostly presence to sift through the illusions and the stock reports until the real killer is identified and caught. A publishers' feeding frenzy netted O'Connell $800,000 for this book and the sequel—which means, fortunately, that it won't be long before we hear from Mallory again. (First printing of 50,000; Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; Quality Paperback Book Club selection)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 1994
ISBN: 0-399-13975-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1994
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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