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CRIME SCHOOL
by Carol O'Connell
G. P.Putnam's Sons, September 2002
397 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0399149287


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

It's been a bit of a wait for the new Kathleen Mallory book, but is certainly worth it. This one addresses the development of Mallory's character and past history where Stone Angel left off and while not quite as great as that book, it is still very very good.

A woman was found nearly dead by hanging. Around her body were dead flies and cockroaches. There were a number of candles that had been burning. A small fire had been started and the fire department had come, so there was water sloshing around the floor. The woman had been a prostitute and the lieutenant did not really want to waste the time of his detectives, but Mallory recalled an earlier hanging death, one that her foster father Markowitz, had observed before Mallory had come to live with him. The question becomes, is the modern killing a copycat or is there a deeper darker reason behind it. And will there be more?

Mallory, Riker, a young "white shield" named Deluthe, and Charles combine to seek to unravel the story. They are aided by a retired cop Geldorf who had been one of the detectives on the original crime and would not be content until the murderer was discovered. Flitting through the story, always just out of reach, is the ten year old waif that Mallory was before Markowitz took her in. Prostitutes, cops, actresses, and other witnesses people the story and provide authenticity and fascination.

Mallory is a person without feelings, or at least with her feelings tamped down. She operates like a machine and is most at home with computers. She is compulsively neat and driven by an inner voice. She has never seemed entirely believable to me but in this book we finally begin to learn some of the forces that went into creating this creature. And it could be possible that one of the killer's stories parallels Mallory's life and he is programmed for death as she is programmed for justice.

Riker picks up a western novel from the floor of the dead prostitute's apartment and discovers that it has an inscription to Mallory from Markowitz. We learn what this book and the others in the series meant to the young girl and at least I begin to develop empathy for the person I originally found so hard to understand.

If these idiosyncratic and singular characters were not enough, the plot is intriguing, complex, and compelling. It goes around and around and seems impossible to unravel at first. The reader is along on a fascinating ride and it is possible only to hang on and let O'Connell take us from clue to clue and murder to murder. The suspense at the end forced me to read without stopping as gradually answer after answer opened as flowers do revealing their secrets one at a time. I admit when it came time to identify the original murderer I was reasonably sure I knew who it was, but that was very late in the book and did not detract at all from my enjoyment.

As always O'Connell provides an intriguing, riveting, and colorful story. It has a mystifying plot, wonderful characters, and best of all opens the door just a little to Mallory's past. Now I want to know even more about how she came to be what she is.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, September 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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