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33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love Mallory, January 2, 2012
This review is from: The Chalk Girl (A Mallory Novel) (Hardcover)
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I laughed out loud reading the blurbs for this book. The New York Daily News said, "If it takes a psychopath to find a psychopath, she's the woman for the job." Psychopath is so widely misunderstood. Kathy Mallory is a sociopath. I love her. In a hair-raising rat-filled Central Park opening, Coco, the beautiful little red-haired girl, in circumstances eerily similar to Kathy Mallory's, is chased down by two officers, until she is found and her story is heard. The similarities end there. Most of Kathy's stories were lies - from her name on down through her age-- while most of Coco's are fanciful flights of imagination. Their personalities are a dichotomy as well, Kathy all hellion, while Coco appears all angel. Coco has a syndrome called Williams syndrome, which puts stars in her eyes, makes her charm every one around her, and causes her to reach out for physical contact from people, any person near her, even pedophiles. It's kind of alarming how quickly she finds two pedophiles. When Dr. Slope meets her, he recognizes her right away as one of the Williams people and he lowers himself to her level so she can throw her arms around his neck. He is brought to tears when Kathy hands him a note telling him to check for rape. Williams people have an extraordinary empathy. While Dr. Slope is examining her, Coco tells him, "Rats cry too. Most people don't know that." Coco has a weird relationship with rats. A haunting passage near the end of novel has a 90-year-old Charles sitting in his backyard with his grandchildren, pulling petals off from daisies, saying, Kathy had a heart, Kathy didn't have a heart, for each petal, never having been able to decide this on his own. But we know. We all know. Kathy's heart was as large as New York City. This is a gorgeous story, every single page, as are most Mallory novels. While reading it, I felt the constant tingle of sadness. Many times I read a page twice - at competing odds. One part of me wanted to know how it turned out, the bigger part wanted me to reread every page so it would last longer. But sadly, eventually I had to reach the end and I nearly wept. Mallory novels always have that effect on me. How much longer for the next Mallory novel? How can I wait that long? What will I do with all that time?
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exciting From Beginning to End, December 15, 2011
This review is from: The Chalk Girl (A Mallory Novel) (Hardcover)
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Kathy Mallory has just reappeared from a cross-country trip taken without notice or permission from her police department. So when a little girl who can't stop talking about rats is found wandering alone in an area of Central Park where three bodies strung up in the trees are also found things are just crazy enough that they need Mallory. Mallory and her partner Riker discover that the little girl was picked up by one of the people strung up in the trees who is an heir to a fortune from the Driscol foundation. The Driscol School is a prominent private school in New York with many friends in positions of power. The story just gets better. I have never read a book by O Connell but you can be certain I will read others after reading this one. Mallory was an enjoyable character who seemed to be just one step ahead of those afraid of her ability to solve a crime. She has a sense of fairness and morality that developed as a child living on the streets. She seems to hold a grudge, when necessary, yet be able to overlook it when it seems in the best interest of those she sees as deserving. One of the questions in the book seemed to be, does she have a heart? The author shocked me by a simple paragraph. " This summer afternoon would remain in his memory forever, a bookmark to a sad and curious passage that he must return to again and again. Weill into his nineties and long after the death of Kathy Mallory, on every fine, warm day, he would sit in a garden where he would only suffer daisies to be planted." I like Mallory and I certainly don't want to think about any future death, I would like to read many more stories that involve this slightly crazy, unorthodox, but extremely effective detective. I like an author who can write prose that makes you want to keep reading, that doesn't make things obvious and the little girl found in Central Park is not the chalk girl, and one who has characters that have realistic flaws. I will be looking for more O'Connell books.
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15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mallory - A Complex Detective, December 9, 2011
This review is from: The Chalk Girl (A Mallory Novel) (Hardcover)
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I am not a stranger to the Mallory series but it's been quite a while since I've read one of the books. This one, The Chalk Girl (A Mallory Novel), is quite good. As in past books, this one is psychologically astute, discussing how Mallory's past and present impacts her relationships with the characters she works with and those she comes into contact with through her work. Mallory was a wild child when she was young, a child foundling, taken in by the Markowitz family as a foster child and loved as though she was their own. Lou Markowitz was a cop and gave Mallory the desire to become a detective herself. Despite the love she received from the Markowitz's, Mallory's wildness never escaped her and she is distant and remote with others as though she suffers from attachment disorder. The novel opens in Central Park with rats running all over the place. There is a young girl named Coco, all alone, who is obsessed with facts about rats and believes that they rain from the sky or fall from the trees. She is right about the trees. Rats have climbed the trees to get into the wrappings of bodies placed there by a murderer. There are three bodies found in trees initially, two alive and one dead. One of the living dies shortly after. Coco is a child with Williams syndrome, a rare syndrome that gives children faces like fairies, makes them want to touch others incessantly, and provides them with areas of brilliance and deficits. Coco says that her Uncle Red was 'delivered' to the park. We find out very early in the book that Uncle Red is not really her uncle but abducted her and is one of the victims of the murderer. Coco had been living with her grandmother who died. After Coco's grandmother died, she went outside the apartment to seek help and Uncle Red abducted her. It was a crime of opportunity. Mallory has been on probation and at a desk job after disappearing from the job for three months. She had been traveling around the contiguous 48 states trying to find herself. She left her job with no words - no request for leave or formal absence. Finding Coco's abductor and working on the murders is Mallory's first foray into the street and the type of detective work she loves. She works with her partner, Riker, with whom she gets along well. This is rare for Mallory who has antagonized almost every one else she works with. The murderer is called 'The Hunger Artist' because his victims have all been starving. Their ears are plugged with pieces of wax, their mouths covered with tape, and their eyes covered up. Who is he and why are these victims chosen? Each short chapter begins with a piece of writing by Ernest Nadler from his school days. Some of the people mentioned in his writing are either victims of the murderer or related to them. How does he fit in with the big picture here? This is as much a psychological study as it is a murder mystery. Mallory is a complex and difficult person to understand. Even her therapist, Charles Butler, who has worked with Mallory for years, finds her difficult to understand. He also harbors a secret love for her. I found this book fascinating though at times I felt puzzled by what was going on as I haven't read all of the Mallory novels. I recommend that anyone interested in this book start with the first one in the series, Mallory's Oracle (Kathleen Mallory Novels).
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