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摘要
摘要
At a sell-out festival of magicians in Manhattan, in front of a live audience and eight million television viewers, a death-defying trick goes tragically wrong.Detective Sergeant Kathy Mallory was convinced that this was murder, and a murder which, mysteriously, might be connected with the death of a woman half a century ago.'O'Connell gradually performs the magic of a master storyteller, exposing the lonely heart of Mallory and the vengeance of a killer. Strange and mysterious, Mallory's fifth outing takes the reader to places no other crime writer visits. It's a trip worth making.' Val McDermid
著者加注
Author Carol O'Connell was born in 1947. She attended the California Institute or Arts/Chouinard and Arizona State University, where she studied art. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a freelance proofreader and copy editor as well as occasionally selling her paintings. At the age of 46, she wrote the first book in the Kathleen Mallory series and sold it to a British publisher. Her title The Chalk Girl made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012.
(Bowker Author Biography)
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
O'Connell (Judas Child) deftly demonstrates her own sleight of hand as she recounts NYPD detective Kathleen Mallory's investigation of the "accidental" death of magician Oliver TreeÄwho died while trying to recreate on live TV the late Max Candle's most famous trick, in which a man survives the fire of four crossbows. As Mallory capitalizes on her friendship with Candle's beloved cousin, Charles Butler, to delve into a WW II mystery involving a group of elderly magicians, all colleagues of Candle and Tree, hints of Mallory's inner life begin to emerge. Once a street kid, the coldly efficient detective comprehends better than most the soul-deadening choices these men made to survive during the war and the cycle of repentance and retribution that have set a deadly game in motion. Mallory is drawn in by the seductive Malakhai, a master of misdirection who is always accompanied by the illusion of his long-dead wife, Louisa. While the detective, in search of answers, uses her high-tech skills to manipulate data banks and to amass information, Charles Butler is in his basement, trying to put together Max's great trick. Meanwhile, the stalwart Sergeant Riker, Mallory's unofficial guardian and staunch defender, is on call. O'Connell adroitly entwines the excitement of Manhattan's Thanksgiving Day parade with the world of illusion and the anguish of war. Her tough realism and hypnotic prose will leave readers eager for more. Author tour. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Kathy Mallory (Killing Critics, 1996, etc.), the savage street-kid turned half-tamed NYPD detective, is back after a one-book hiatus (Judas Child, 1998). Mallory's rules can be disconcerting to her admirers, infuriating to her superiors, and terrifying to her enemies, although they seem perfectly reasonable to her. When an elderly magician dies before a TV audience of millions, no one aside from Mallory believes it's murder. What's more, it's obvious to her'and her alone'that the malefactor will strike again. ``My perp loves spectacle,'' she tells her partner as they stake out the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It turns out she's right, of course. And right about the first death, too'no accident at all but a homicide cleverly disguised. Yet who'd want to kill a harmless, likable, venerable magician? One of a group of other venerable magicians, Mallory decides. Among them is the mysterious, still charismatic Malakhai, whose dead wife seems to accompany him wherever he goes, drinking his wine, smoking his cigarettes, sharing his conversation'an illusionist's trick as bewildering to Mallory as it is irritating. But if the magicians constitute the sum total of usual suspects, what could possibly make sense as a motive? As Mallory, indefatigable as ever, pursues her investigation, she discovers how inextricably her perp is connected to another crime, this one 50 years old, shrouded in enigma and drenched in treachery and betrayal. At the close, the brilliantly devious culprit is made to suffer'brought to the special kind of justice shaped by Mallory's rules. Too long for its thinnish plot and tending, every so often, to mark time. Mallory, however, retains all her feral, sullen, paradoxically endearing components, so it's probable that series fans won't mind the muchness overmuch. (Literary Guild and Mystery Guild alternate selections; author tour)
《书目》(Booklist)书评
Aging magician Oliver Tree dies tragically when his flashiest magic trick goes awry in front of a national television audience. The cops declare Tree's death accidental, but NYPD Detective Kathy Mallory thinks otherwise. She's determined to prove Oliver was murdered, but to do so, she must seek clues in a tragic love story with roots back to World War II. She must also confront Malakhai, a supremely gifted magician whose astonishing powers of illusion almost make a believer of the coldly skeptical Mallory. In Malakhai and the terrible conspiracy of secrets and lies from the past, Mallory almost meets her match. As those who've read previous O'Connell books know, Kathy Mallory's own near-mystical power to root out and destroy evil is considerable, but that power comes at a cost: this is a cold, cruel, remorseless, emotionless woman. And yet, in this story, O'Connell shows us a Mallory who, briefly, becomes a vulnerable human being. Once again, O'Connell has woven a rich, complex, memorable tale that will keep readers guessing and gasping through scenes filled with love, heartbreak, betrayal, and remorse. Another superb effort from one of our most gifted writers. --Emily Melton
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
When a magic trick ends in a spectacular death on live television, everyone thinks that it's an accidentÄexcept a retired magician who's watching from a private hospital and Kathleen Mallory, back in another thriller. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.