Killing Critics - Carol O’Connell

Written by Carol O’Connell
Read by Laural Merlington
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

You might agree with one review, “What is it about Carol O’Connell’s Kathy Mallory series? Kathy Mallory is about the least sympathetic heroine of any genre…a genuine anti-anti-anti heroine. And O’Connell’s writing is moody and rough - kind of like its places-you’ve-never-been-in-New York setting. These are never easy reads and yet I can’t put them down,”

Series: Kathy Mallory, Book 3
Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
Release date: 07-24-09
Publisher: Brilliance Audio

NYPD sergeant Kathleen Mallory, a wild child turned policewoman, possessed of a ferocious intelligence and a unique inner compass of right and wrong, is about to be sorely tested.

Killing Critics begins with a discreet murder - the almost unnoticed death of a hack artist at a gallery opening - but quickly connects with a much more brutal crime - a twelve-year-old double homicide and dismemberment originally investigated by Mallory’s now deceased adoptive father, Louis Markowitz. A quick confession ended that case, but as Mallory probes into the new murder, the ghosts of the old will not be still. She finds herself traveling in an intricately connected world of envy, greed, and lethal passions: a place where no relationship is what it seems, and the secrets, very deep and very dark indeed, strike closer and closer to home. By the end, she will come to know the truth - but the truth may be the most dangerous illusion of all.

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.