(spoiler alert i wrote this for a discussion on a mailing list at a point in the discussion where spoilers were fair play. so as well as being lengthy it rather gives the plot away. you have been warned.) Mallory is definitely a totally unreal and completely unique character. I haven't come across a character like her and though I couldn't say that I liked her that didn't affect my enjoyment of the book at all. I liked the technique of having the main character being the loopy one. What did bug me was that the main characters seemed like caricatures because they all had one feature too many. Mallory has her green eyes and stunning beauty, her lost childhood and her computer skills; Charles has his enormous nose, magical relatives and his eid-whatsit memory. Take one feature away from each character and they'd begin to be manageable. Both Markowitzes seemed similarly over the top. It felt to me as if the author didn't know where to stop when she was trying to create unique characters. I thought the secondary characters were better thought out, maybe because we only saw bits of them it was easier for my mind to make them into real people. Even the ones who were clearly not well balanced personalities, like the boy who played chess in the park or the minimalist living in Charles' building, seemed that they would find a place in the real world. My favourites were the old ladies, I don't care if it was unreal that they wouldn't be scared of a serial killer, I liked their spirit. There were parallels between the lives of Mallory and Charles in the book both being, in summary, weird kids with strange technical skills; I especially liked the way that both their childhood experiences came into the plot. Charles' experiences with Max and Edith being part of the main plot and Mallory's street life and subsequent upbringing by Louis and Helen setting up her strange ethical code. I can't see them as a couple, I think Charles is good for Mallory but I don't think Mallory is good for Charles. I think Mallory was a thoroughly rubbish investigator and I loved the fact that she screwed stuff up. I don't think she'd have made it into a police force in the real world. It kind of compensated for all the cops being in awe of her beauty that they were better at the job than her. I think she homed in on Gaynor so fast simply because he got the most money from the killings and that's what Louis had said to look for and she was rather lacking in independent thought on the subject, the same kind of training that led her not to do things that would make Helen cry. I was more interested in the old lady killings than the Markowitz one. I got a bit tired of Mallory and the Markowitzes and found Charles and the serial killings more interesting. I was convinced it was all going to end up having something to do with Max, mainly because I also found the death of the magician more intriguing than the other killings.The magic stuff was definitely one of my favourite parts of the book. I like the psychology of woo-woo stuff and how it affects people. Mallory's reaction to the seance and Edith's guillotine trick were two of the best bits in the book. These themes definitely enhanced the book for me. I hate it when books are about the genuine supernatural; I don't believe in it and it's one thing I can't suspend my non belief in for fiction. So, conversely, when a book turns out to be about the non-genuine supernatural and its affect on people's minds I love it. As a result I was sure Edith was up to some sort of tricks with her trance writing simply because I couldn't take it as the real thing. I loved Jon's idea that the women could have arranged a suicide pact that would make them go down in history as the victims of a serial killer. A wonderful idea and what a pity it wasn't the way the story worked out! I thought all the stuff about the knife girl was good to start with but I got tired of it. She was so obvious a red herring that I thought she had to not be a red herring for a while. The same with Redwing, she wasn't interesting enough for the part she had to play, there were too many details (dog, boy, hideouts, seances, etc) and not enough character. The ending all got a bit convoluted and I couldn't keep track of who was shooting who or what was going on and what all the motives were. The all action, all shooting, all racing to the scene bit seemed to be the wrong finale for the book. I didn't think it was resolved very satisfactorily. Edith stood out to me as being mainly to blame, but I haven't reread that bit to see if I can make sense of it. I enjoyed the book on the whole and I'll read another. Was this Carol O'Connell's first book or just the first in this series? It seemed well written but I found many things over done, the plot was too complicated, there were too many characters, the main characters all had too many features. I want people to act and talk their way off the page, not just waggle their props at me to show me what they are like. I felt like the author was trying to impress me too much. It was a good book, it just could have been better.
Mallory's Oracle is the first book of the Kathleen Mallory mystery series by Carol O'Connell, set in 1990s New York City.Kathleen "Kathy" Mallory was a street child caught thieving by NYPD detective Louis Markowitz. Louis and his wife Helen adopted and raised Kathy as a daughter. Now an NYPD officer herself, she specializes in computer work for the Special Crimes unit. When Markowitz is killed while investigating a serial killer, Mallory is placed on bereavement leave from NYPD, and she begins her own investigation. Markowitz's close friend Charles Butler and NYPD Detective Riker both attempt to protect Kathy from being another victim of the killer.There are striking parallels between Kathy and Lisbeth Salander, the protagonist of the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. Both women are fiercely independent, each with her own unique code of honor and vigilante spirit, preferring to operate outside conventional rules as a matter of course, brilliant computer hackers, loyal only to the few they trust, coming from troubled childhoods. As Kathy investigates the murders of elderly women, she considers more potential suspects than the police investigation, and she digs deeper into every detail of the victim's and suspects lives, finding links to magic, seances, and insider trading. The plot contains red herrings galore, straightforward at first, but more complex near the final suspenseful scene. No worries: the final shootout scene is thrilling even if you skim over the intricacies of the solution.Kathy's relationship with Charles Butler is an interesting one: friendship and trust on Kathy's part, sheer love on Charles'. Kathy bullies Charles into being partners in his consulting firm, but he enjoys closely working with her. Detective Riker earns Kathy's trust by providing her information from the NYPD murder investigation while she is officially on leave. The supporting characters (Kathy's suspects) provide interesting background stories and side plots. The eerie prologue scene seems unrelated to the story until a Santeria connection is revealed, but it is never quite explained, and lingers after the story is complete.I recommend Mallory's Oracle to mystery fans who enjoy detailed police procedurals. I look forward to reading more of the series, which currently (July 2012) contains 10 books. The next book in the series is The Man Who Cast Two Shadows.
What do You think about Mallory's Oracle (1995)?
DO NOT waste your time on bad first O'Connell book...The character of Kathy Mallory is introduced in this first of a set of (now) six stories about a NYPD detective. With these and one other hardback under her belt, one would think O'Connell must be a successful author. Not by our eyes! We have read and lectured about an extensive list of leading lady amateur sleuths, private eyes, and policewomen; and we'd have to rate Mallory as maybe the worst. While she's billed a thousand times by her author as smart, intense, gorgeous (naturally), and maybe the world's greatest computer hacker (authors always make this look so easy - it's not), she seems more like a ventriloquist's dummy -- some words come out but there's no personality, nothing in her actions to intrigue or endear her to us. Is the fact that she's an ex-thief/bad girl supposed to charm us?Put this together with a complicated, difficult to follow plot, with dozens of stick characters we practically need a scorecard to keep track of, we almost broke a long-standing rule and abandoned this two-thirds of the way through. Even the ending was unsatisfying -- while it did clear up the mystery (we use the term loosely), we readers would never have arrived there with the paucity of clues and countless irrelevant side trips and diversions. That Mallory solves the case (more or less) after leaving her hospital bed, pulling out her IV after a near-fatal poisoning and charging off on her own (no backup of course) just adds to the silly unrealistic action.We're all the more put out because one of our favorite authors, Linda Barnes, recommends O'Connoll as one of her favorites. Why?
—Jerry
I tried and tried to enjoy this book, and there sure are parts and aspects to this story that appealed to me; for instance every time Kathy Mallory thinks about Louis and Helen Markowitz, the cop and his wife, now both deceased and who took her in when she was eleven, when she was a street kid, a thief. They gave her a home and love. Now Kathy Mallory, 25, is a cop herself with Special Crimes Unit, mainly being a computer specialist, lacking field experience.There’s no way I can find Kathy sympathetic. She goes in every direction, except in the emotionally authentic; she doesn’t come across as a true flesh-and-bone person, in my eyes at least. I did like Charles Butler on the other hand, his upbringing, his manners, his eidetic memory. Not sure what to think about the plot either. It just didn’t grip me. I remained un-captivated throughout the entire book. The start of the story felt promising. Admittedly, the writing threw me off a few times. It was unusual.Just when I thought I had found a new police procedural series to dig into; now I’m not sure if I’ll pursue this series. A bit old fashioned and Kathy Mallory not entirely being a very well defined protagonist.
—Marleen
MALLORY'S ORACLECarol O'Connell This is Ms. O'Connell's debut novel in her fantastic series featuring the marvelous character, Kathleen Mallory. This is far and away my favorite mystery series. Kathleen is a homeless wild child on the streets of New York where the police chief finds her and he and his wife adopt her. Kathleen grows up to be an independent strong willed computer hacker who is a sergeant in the Special Crimes Unit. She is a detective with a ferocious intelligence, green gun slinger eyes and a take no prisoners attitude who dresses all in black. Remember this is all before Lisbeth Salander.When her adoptive father, Louis Markowitz and two others are found stabbed in a Gramercy Park tenement she become possessed and determined to solve the case.Highly Recommended
—JoAnne Pulcino
