The chalk girl

The Resource The chalk girl
Label
The chalk girl
Statement of responsibility
Carol O'Connell
Title variation
chalk girl
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"Before Lisbeth Salander, there was Kathy Mallory. The astonishing new Mallory novel from the New York Times-bestselling author. The little girl appeared in Central Park: red-haired, blue-eyed, smiling, perfect-except for the blood on her shoulder. It fell from the sky, she said, while she was looking for her uncle, who turned into a tree. Poor child, people thought. And then they found the body in the tree. For Mallory, newly returned to the Special Crimes Unit after three months' lost time, there is something about the girl that she understands. Mallory is damaged, they say, but she can tell a kindred spirit. And this one will lead her to a story of extraordinary crimes: murders stretching back fifteen years, blackmail and complicity and a particular cruelty that only someone with Mallory's history could fully recognize. In the next few weeks, she will deal with them... all in her own way. "--
Member of
Storyline
Pace
Tone
Writing style
Review
  • Kathy Mallory of the NYPD’s Special Crimes Unit may be the Lord Byron of police detectives. Like Byron, the gorgeous and beyond-eccentric Mallory is “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” In this remarkable series, Mallory, wounded by a horrific childhood, concentrates her entire being on the vengeful pursuit of bad guys, using some well-developed criminal skills to flush them out of hiding. Mallory is pulled out of leave (brought on by the department psychiatrist’s labeling her as “dangerously unstable”) by a case her superiors think that only she, rocky as she is, can solve. The case turns on one witness, an eight-year-old girl with a rare genetic disorder that leaves her physically and emotionally vulnerable, who knew a serial killer’s first victim, found hanging from a tree in Central Park. Victims range from a homeless man to a prep-school boy and his grieving parents. O’Connell delivers shock after shock, held together by exquisitely detailed police and forensic procedure and by the riveting, punishing figure of Mallory herself. -- Fletcher, Connie (Reviewed 11-15-2011) (Booklist, vol 108, number 6, p24)
  • /* Starred Review */ Near the start of bestseller O’Connell outstanding 10th novel featuring New York City cop Kathy Mallory (after 2006’s Find Me), the enigmatic Mallory, despite having been declared mentally unfit to return to duty following an unexplained three month long absence, nonchalantly reclaims her desk in the Special Crimes Unit. Nobody questions “Mallory the Machine,” especially after she connects with a savantlike child found wandering alone in Central Park. Eight-year-old Coco has witnessed a kidnapping and murder, but the girl is incapable of describing the killer. The murder of Coco’s uncle is one of three similar crimes that Mallory begins to suspect are linked to a couple of cold cases as well as to pervasive corruption among the city’s elite. O’Connell’s awesome ability to weave a taut, complex plot works with Mallory’s equally awesome detective skills as she unearths each crystalline facet of crimes both past and present. Author tour. (Jan.) --Staff (Reviewed October 31, 2011) (Publishers Weekly, vol 258, issue 44, p)
  • /* Starred Review */ It has been five years since O'Connell gave us a new novel in her Mallory series, but the action picks up only a few weeks after we last saw Mallory melting down in Find Me . Once again, a child is in jeopardy, one who may be a witness to a series of grisly crimes in New York's Central Park. Coco is an unusual child, but she charms even the antisocial detective Mallory, though her partner, Riker, and friend Charles Butler doubt how deeply she can care for the little girl. But Mallory, who predates both Dexter Morgan and Lisbeth Salander as an unlikely crime-stopping sociopath, does care for Coco—in her own violently protective way. As Mallory and Riker unravel the mystery, older crimes are uncovered, along with the ways adults repeatedly fail the children around them. VERDICT O'Connell offers more than a suspenseful tale; she portrays a complex world of dark and light, corruption and love, in a New York City that retains its grittiness. Another must-read in a compelling and rich crime series. [See Prepub Alert, 7/11/11.]— Devon Thomas, DevIndexing, Chelsea, MI --Devon Thomas (Reviewed November 15, 2011) (Library Journal, vol 136, issue 19, p68)
  • A complex, gritty thriller that is at once hard to take and hard to put down. It opens with a woman taking a group of schoolchildren on a visit to Sheep Meadow, part of Manhattan's Central Park. After the children wander off, she collapses and dies from a massive stroke, and a horde of rats gnaw on her corpse. A mysterious 8-year-old waif named Coco appears and displays considerable knowledge of vermin. One of a series of novels featuring NYPD detective Kathy Mallory, this book has a number of surprising and grisly twists. The characters are fascinating, though, including crazy Mallory, who had once been a street urchin herself and now brings a unique perspective to her job. Coco has Williams Syndrome, a condition that manifests itself partly in excessive desire to be loved, even by strangers. Give her a hug and she's cool, but don't get her started talking about rats. Meanwhile, Mallory investigates the murder of a schoolboy named Ernest Nadler--Dead Ernest--who has been systematically tormented by a small group of other children. Who are they, and why did they do it? Has someone put them up to the crime? No doubt children exist who are capable of such evil, although they are hard to imagine. And perhaps such children--speaking of vermin--need no particular motivation to inflict themselves on a classmate. But the ultimate motivation for the crime and the deep, insane intrafamily hatred seem rather hard to believe. Hardly the craziest character in the story, Mallory pursues the case with a certain emotional detachment. She gets in the faces of powerful people even as she strives to protect the strange Coco, who doesn't seem surprised when rats fall from the sky. Readers who dislike tales of torture and murder of children will take a pass on this one, but those who relish justice will be glad they read to the end.(Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2011)
Assigning source
Provided by publisher
Cataloging source
JRS
Dewey number
813/.54
Index
no index present
LC call number
PS3565.C497
LC item number
C47 2012
Literary form
fiction
Series statement
Mallory series
Series volume
0010
Target audience
adult

Context

Context of The chalk girl

Work of

Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Williamsburg Regional Library. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.
Processing Feedback ...