Mallory’s Oracle
by Carol O’Connell
Copyright: 1994
Pages: 310
Read: March 14-18, 2018
Rating: 2.5/5
Source: Purchased at Used Book Store
Blurb: Jonathan Kellerman says Mallory’s Oracle is “a joy.” Nelson DeMille and other advance readers have called it “truly amazing, ” “a classic” with “immense appeal.” It is all of that, and more: a stunning debut novel about a web of unsolved murders in New York’s Gramercy Park and the singular woman who makes them her obsession.
At its center is Kathleen Mallory, an extraordinary wild child turned New York City policewoman. Adopted off the streets as a little girl by a police inspector and his wife, she is still not altogether civilized now that she is a sergeant in the Special Crimes section. With her ferocious intelligence and green gunslinger eyes, Mallory (never Kathleen, never Kathy) operates by her own inner compass of right and wrong, a sense of justice that drives her in unpredictable ways. She is a thing apart.
And today, she is a thing possessed. Although more at home in the company of computers than in the company of men, Mallory is propelled onto the street when the body of her adoptive father, Louis Markowitz, is found stabbed in a tenement next to the body of a wealthy Gramercy Park woman. The murders are clearly linked to two other Gramercy Park homicides Markowitz had been investigating, and now his cases become Mallory’s, his death her cause. Prowling the streets, sifting through his clues, drawing on his circle of friends and colleagues, she plunges into a netherworld of light and shadow, where people are not what they seem and truth shifts without warning. And a murderer waits who is every bit as wild and unpredictable as she….
Filled with deep, seductive atmosphere and razor-sharp prose, Mallory’s Oracle is gripping, resonant suspense of tantalizing complexity—a genuinely unforgettable novel.
Review: Okay so this is the first book in the Kathleen Mallory series. I had actually acquired this book a long time ago and at some point took it off my Goodreads TBR (I’m assuming it was going to be part of a purge) but for whatever reason, I put it back on my shelf to keep. I should have let it go in that purge…
This book was really strange. I had a very hard time connecting to any of the characters. I actually re-read the first few pages in the beginning because I felt like I had missed something. I hadn’t. It just didn’t draw me in. Because of that lack of early disinterest, I know for a fact I missed a lot going forward. At the very end when it was all revealed, I had no idea how on earth the killer ended up being the killer. It just didn’t make sense to me at all. There was a lot of unnecessary things along the way in my opinion. An entire storyline regarding mediums and seances? Had absolutely nothing to do with the serial killings being investigated. What was the point?!
I didn’t care for it. I won’t be reading further in this series. I didn’t like the characters. Mallory is cold, way too cold for my taste. I never could figure out why Charles “inherited” her…. yeah, this book just didn’t work for me very well.
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