Book
Shell game / Carol O'Connell.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780425176030 (pbk.)
- ISBN: 0425176037
- Physical Description: 402 p. ; 18 cm.
- Publisher: New York : Berkley Books, 2000, c1999.
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- Subject:
- Mallory, Kathleen (Fictitious character) > Fiction.
Policewomen > New York (State) > New York > Fiction.
Magicians > New York (State) > New York > Fiction.
New York (N.Y.) > Fiction. - Genre:
- Mystery fiction.
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| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
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- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Monthly Selections - #2 April 1999
/*Starred Review*/ Aging magician Oliver Tree dies tragically when his flashiest magic trick goes awry in front of a national television audience. The cops declare Tree's death accidental, but NYPD Detective Kathy Mallory thinks otherwise. She's determined to prove Oliver was murdered, but to do so, she must seek clues in a tragic love story with roots back to World War II. She must also confront Malakhai, a supremely gifted magician whose astonishing powers of illusion almost make a believer of the coldly skeptical Mallory. In Malakhai and the terrible conspiracy of secrets and lies from the past, Mallory almost meets her match. As those who've read previous O'Connell books know, Kathy Mallory's own near-mystical power to root out and destroy evil is considerable, but that power comes at a cost: this is a cold, cruel, remorseless, emotionless woman. And yet, in this story, O'Connell shows us a Mallory who, briefly, becomes a vulnerable human being. Once again, O'Connell has woven a rich, complex, memorable tale that will keep readers guessing and gasping through scenes filled with love, heartbreak, betrayal, and remorse. Another superb effort from one of our most gifted writers. ((Reviewed April 15, 1999)) Copyright 2000 BooklistReviews - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 1999 July
Carol O'Connell's sixth New York-based Kathleen Mallory mystery Shell Game is not the simple illusion its title suggests. Its convolution and deciphering transform penny-ante poker into high-stakes investigation, loyalties into levers to gain clues, dementia into a shield fordecades-old guilt.Just prior to Thanksgiving, on national television, an old-school magician's attempt at an ambitious, dangerous trick results in his death. His failings are blamed: He was out of his league; his timing was off. Unlike everyone else, detective Kathleen Mallory believes that the death was planned. When her initial attempts to gather information on a magicians' float at the Macy's Parade are twisted to her professional embarrassment, Mallory digs in deeper.
O'Connell's protagonist is the veteran of a childhood on urban streets - a focused, tough detective, a source of bafflement to her colleagues. But self-knowledge, stubbornness, and cyber-skills give her an edge in confronting clever, violent opponents. Be warned: Shell Game may result in lost sleep, not for its subject matter but for its relentless puzzle. You do not get what you see.
Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the forthcoming Gumbo Limbo. Copyright 1999 BookPage Reviews
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 1999 April #2
Kathy Mallory (Killing Critics, 1996, etc.), the savage street-kid turned half-tamed NYPD detective, is back after a one-book hiatus (Judas Child, 1998). Mallory's rules can be disconcerting to her admirers, infuriating to her superiors, and terrifying to her enemies, although they seem perfectly reasonable to her. When an elderly magician dies before a TV audience of millions, no one aside from Mallory believes it s murder. What's more, it's obvious to her and her alone that the malefactor will strike again. ``My perp loves spectacle,'' she tells her partner as they stake out the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It turns out she's right, of course. And right about the first death, too no accident at all but a homicide cleverly disguised. Yet who'd want to kill a harmless, likable, venerable magician? One of a group of other venerable magicians, Mallory decides. Among them is the mysterious, still charismatic Malakhai, whose dead wife seems to accompany him wherever he goes, drinking his wine, smoking his cigarettes, sharing his conversation an illusionist's trick as bewildering to Mallory as it is irritating. But if the magicians constitute the sum total of usual suspects, what could possibly make sense as a motive? As Mallory, indefatigable as ever, pursues her investigation, she discovers how inextricably her perp is connected to another crime, this one 50 years old, shrouded in enigma and drenched in treachery and betrayal. At the close, the brilliantly devious culprit is made to suffer brought to the special kind of justice shaped by Mallory's rules. Too long for its thinnish plot and tending, every so often, to mark time. Mallory, however, retains all her feral, sullen, paradoxically endearing components, so it's probable that series fans won't mind the muchness overmuch. (Literary Guild and Mystery Guild alternate selections; author tour) Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 1999 March #1
When a magic trick ends in a spectacular death on live television, everyone thinks that it's an accident except a retired magician who's watching from a private hospital and Kathleen Mallory, back in another thriller. Copyright 1999 Library Journal Reviews - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 1999 June #2
O'Connell (Judas Child) deftly demonstrates her own sleight of hand as she recounts NYPD detective Kathleen Mallory's investigation of the "accidental" death of magician Oliver Tree who died while trying to recreate on live TV the late Max Candle's most famous trick, in which a man survives the fire of four crossbows. As Mallory capitalizes on her friendship with Candle's beloved cousin, Charles Butler, to delve into a WW II mystery involving a group of elderly magicians, all colleagues of Candle and Tree, hints of Mallory's inner life begin to emerge. Once a street kid, the coldly efficient detective comprehends better than most the soul-deadening choices these men made to survive during the war and the cycle of repentance and retribution that have set a deadly game in motion. Mallory is drawn in by the seductive Malakhai, a master of misdirection who is always accompanied by the illusion of his long-dead wife, Louisa. While the detective, in search of answers, uses her high-tech skills to manipulate data banks and to amass information, Charles Butler is in his basement, trying to put together Max's great trick. Meanwhile, the stalwart Sergeant Riker, Mallory's unofficial guardian and staunch defender, is on call. O'Connell adroitly entwines the excitement of Manhattan's Thanksgiving Day parade with the world of illusion and the anguish of war. Her tough realism and hypnotic prose will leave readers eager for more. Author tour. (July) Copyright 1999 Publishers Weekly Reviews