Killing Critics
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Mallory Book 3: from New York Times bestseller Carol O'Connell, master of knife-edge suspense and intricate plotting.
Detective Kathy Mallory. New York's darkest. You only underestimate her once.
A deadly familiar crime.
An artist is murdered, in a stylish, surprising and deadly act of performance art. The murder almost goes unnoticed, but it reminds NYPD detective Kathy Mallory of an older, more brutal crime investigated years before by Mallory's now dead adoptive father.
A maverick cop with attitude.
As soon as Mallory starts to work on the new crime, old ghosts rise up, and the word comes down from on high to close her down, to shut her out of the case.
What if her father had been right? What if the butcher was still out there?
But for Mallory, rules exist only to be shattered ...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O'Connell's driven and sharp-edged NYPD detective Kathleen Mallory revisits a 12-year-old double murder case first investigated by her beloved adoptive father, whose death was central to her notable debut in Mallory's Oracle (1994). The murder of a second-rate performance artist in mid-performance has many associations to the earlier, grisly and still unsolved homicides, which also touched the art world. Many of the same characters are involved in both killings: J.L. Quinn, the elegantly icy critic whose niece was one of the first victims; Avril Koozeman, whose galleries were murder scenes then and now; and Emma Sue Halloran, once a critic, now a culturecrat who forces hideous art into new buildings. Mallory and her partner, Sergeant Riker, must find keys to the new killing by prying memories from these witnesses. Hampering their efforts is the desire of the police brass to keep the old case closed. O'Connell's narrative force and character development are irresistible. Although the intense and private Mallory offers little to love until late in the story, her fierce determination draws the reader into her quest. Wacky artsy types and a flawed but sympathetic Riker leaven the heavy dose of misanthropy. O'Connell also delivers a cynical, funny lesson in art marketing, which sounds here less like culture than a pretentious pyramid scheme. 50,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour.
