How to describe 'O Connell's Mallory? Try to picture Dragon Tattoo's Lisabeth Salander as a blonde, six foot tall, drop dead gorgeous New York City detective. And like Salander, Mallory's childhood backstory almost defies description in its horror......orphaned, and sadistically victimized, the child Mallory, a waif with a core of steel, winds up as a scrabbling, homeless street thief in NYC until she's arrested and adopted by Detective Louis Markowitz. Markowitz and his wife raise Mallory, attempting their best at coating this implacable force of nature with a veneer of civility and humanity. But Mallory remains Mallory, with a single-minded, cold, unforgiving moral compass to strike back and avenge wrongs....to herself and others. And what better career for her than a a police detective in New York City.....where the murderers she pursues discover, to their utter terror, that the cop hunting them is every bit their equal in monstrous, amoral behavior.
We haven't cracked open 'Blind Side' yet (we promise a review soon), but Beached Quill can tell you without reservation that the previous eleven books challenge the formidable Kathy Mallory with a masterfully written array of intricate twisting plots and suspects. You'll have your own personal favorites as you read through the series, but most of all, you'll stay with them for the sheer joy of watching the relentless, remorseless Mallory cut a swath through the storylines like an avenging angel. And you'll come to savor the extraordinary moments when 'O Connell reveals that underneath all the emotional scar tissue, there lies hidden a surprisingly warm, beating heart somewhere inside Mallory,,,,, which virtually no one ( except you, the reader) ever sees.
Oddly enough, two of our all time best-loved Mallory novels take her outside the confines of New York City.....STONE ANGEL sends Mallory back to the sleepy deep South town of her birth, where she arrives to wreak Mallory-style vengeance on the man who incited a mob to stone her mother to death. She suits up like Clint Eastwood's spaghetti western Man With No Name and the town's deep-fried Faulkner rednecks soon face Mallory-geddon. Our other best-of-Mallory, FIND ME, puts her out on historic Route 66, where a heartbreaking caravan of grieving parents has taken to the highway in search of their missing abducted children. Mallory must deal the with memory of her own horrendous childhood while travelling to the inevitable 'High Noon' encounter with a psychotic pedophile.
If you haven't heard of these books, or have heard of them and haven't gotten to one yet......know that Beached Quill loudly declares this series the FIND OF FINDS. We aim a full 5 .357 Magnums.....
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