| Title | : | The Chalk Girl (Kathleen Mallory, #10) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0399157743 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780399157745 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 373 |
| Publication | : | First published June 9, 2011 |
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.
The Chalk Girl (Kathleen Mallory, #10) Reviews
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I jumped in cold to book ten of the series without a problem. If you’re in the mood for an intense psychological thriller with beautifully fleshed out characters and ultra wicked villians you just found it. It begins with Coco, a little girl found wandering alone in Central Park after discovering 3 dead bodies strung up in a tree. A little heartbreaker with Williams Syndrome, a disorder typified by elfin like features and a warm, outgoing personality. Craving human contact they will run up to perfect strangers for a hug; an instinctive trust in people in stark contrast to Detective Mallory. Beautifully written, it’s the interaction between these two that makes this story sing.
Abandoned as a child, Mallory’s coping mechanism is to become a loner, to isolate herself from emotional connections. She's damaged, completely unpredictable and brilliant; nicknamed the machine for her relentless, often manipulative & coldblooded pursuit of perps. Some reviewers find her unlikeable, I adore her...
"There’s not one feminist bone in her body - she had no need of one. Only a rare and suicidal man might suggest that his detective was of better use barefoot and pregnant" Her partner and staunchest friend Detective Riker pretty great as well.
"In a rumpled suit stained with week-old mustard, civilians only saw him as a middle-aged man with bad posture, an amiable, laid-back smile and hooded eyes that said to everyone he met I know you’re lying, but I just don’t care"
Cons: None really. I did find it a bit confusing but blame myself for not giving it the concentration it deserved. A web of deceit & blackmail entwining children, lobbyists, influential socialites and top ranking officers of New York’s police department. Terrific characters but a ton of them to keep track of – be prepared to pay attention:) For it’s genre 4 ½ stars rounded up too 5. DEFINITELY want more of this series.
Of interest: Boston University School of Medicine 'The Faces of Williams Syndrome'"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgfm8i..."
Warning: some graphic violence involving children -
Fires on all cylinders for me: good engagement of the mind with an intriguing mystery and depth in the characters, of the heart with empathy for the investigator and victim, and of the gut with thrills and chills in the plot and roots of evil. That’s a rare combination for me in my pervasive escapist reading of mysteries and police procedurals. James Lee Burke and Michael Connelly achieve such a trifecta for me sometimes.
This 2011 outing is number 10 out of 11 in the series featuring NYPD Detective Kathy Mallory. Like Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander, she is young, damaged, and dangerous and plays computers and people to achieve her own version of justice. One can’t help wonder if O’Connell provided some inspiration for Larsson’s hero. Mallory too lost her parents and lived on the street and in foster care, learning at a tender age how to fight back against abuse and corruption with subterfuge, manipulation, and violence. Adoption into the loving family of a Manhattan police chief and his wife put her on a path to law enforcement; Salander’s taming influences were less substantial. What keeps the Mallory tales away from the cartoonishness of twisted superheroes like Mel Gibson’s role in the “Lethal Weapon” movies is a satisfying level of psychological depth to her character and of the bad guys she pursues.
In this tale, Mallory has recently returned from an unapproved absence of many months, about which nothing is revealed (to the chagrin of readers of the prior novel on that period, “Find Me”, published a long 5 years before this installment). Her partner Riker and lieutenant Coffey are too scared of her to press too hard on her mysterious absence and are eager to get her out of probation desk work into the field because of a tough case. A grisly discovery has been made in the Ramble are of Central Park, a body bagged and gagged in a tree, ravaged by rats. They need her skills to find a missing child spattered by blood, who is the only likely witness. The 8-year old child, Coco, once found, provides a strange babbling over her traumatic experiences (she has Williams syndrome, gifted in some ways like an idiot savant). Her clues are slowly parsed by Mallory and her psychologist friend Charles, who bend the rules in taking private custody of the child. More victims are found, the link being that they students many years ago of a private school run by a prominent charitable foundation.
As evidence for an old crime and cover-up are turned up, much pressure and interference entangles Mallory and Riker from higher up the food chain from rival powers, the acting police commissioner and the chief of detectives. Meanwhile, the reader is presented with segments from a boy’s diary at the beginning of each chapter, which highlights his heroic struggle to deal with an extreme campaign of bullying by a group of wealthy kids at the school. This approach by O’Connell is very well done. Here are a couple of sample entries:
Before they can grab me, I warn them that I have superpowers. I can run like a rabbit, shiver like a whippet, and I can scream like a little girl. The three of them look at me like—what the hell? This buys me a few seconds, and I jump into the slipstream of a passing teacher. At lunchtime, they come along every few minutes like taxicabs. …
My guidance counselor tells me that school days are the best time of my life, and I should relish every second. When she tells me this, I want to scream, “You silly old fuck! It’s hell every day, five days a week! It’s war!”
So many other thrillers focus on a cat-and-mouse game between one hero and one evil guy, with romance thrown into the mix. O’Connell, based on the two previous ones I read, tends to be guilty of dividing the reader’s focus too much between the cult of Mallory’s badass personality and an overly complex nest of bad guys. This one has the balance right. A clear theme is that “monsters are beget by monsters.” Her lack of romantic interests is refreshing on one hand, but a disturbing sign of her inhuman qualities. The levity comes from the persistent hope and expectation that Mallory must have some hidden empathy for the victims and must have some affection for Riker and Charles. In this tale, I was moved how both cross swords with her over the right approach to use and come away perturbed by rare victories. In Riker’s case, he finds some satisfaction in his alternate approach to playing the wolves in power:
The man had avenged fair lady and won her a prize, and he had done this in a way that Mallory never could have managed. For one thing, the event was bloodless. And shame was not a word in her lexicon, nor a weapon in her arsenal.
In the case of Charles (who secretly loves Mallory), his interest in protecting Coco from further trauma leads him to keep Mallory from pressing the girl too hard as a witness, thinking her only concern was for the case. When he later discovers that Mallory has replenished Coco’s jar of lightening bugs, he is blown away over missing signs of deep caring on her part. O’Connell projects an imaginary future with Charles playing a version of the “she loves me, she love me not” game:
He, who was whole and sane and fully human—he would never have thought to light a child’s way through the night with fireflies. And so he plucked the daisies bald, alternating Mallory’s possibilities, saying with one torn petal, “She had no heart,” and with the next petal, “She did.”
That’s what I mean about depth. O’Connell thrills and shocks you on one line, then moves you in tender and subtle ways on another. -
O'Connell started writing the Mallory novels long before Steig Larson and his Salander character and long before Taylor Stevens and her Michael novels, though comparisons can be made. Love these books and the characters in them, Mallory herself has such an interesting back story. Good plots and interesting psychological meanderings make this series my favorite.
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The whole Mallory series is entertaining as hell. It is also ridiculous in the way of many mysteries: an incredibly clever and personally wealthy person works for the NYPD, solving clever crimes without having to do any of the tedious work. Mallory is also beautiful, and immaculately groomed at all times. Also, all the wealthy people who don't work for the NYPD are horrible, really awful people who deserve whatever they get. As income inequality increases in the US I enjoy reading about horribly rich people coming to bad ends all the more. Shadenfreudalicious!
Other than that, the big selling point here is the charming Coco, a character with Williams syndrome, which enables Charles to explain it all to the reader. There is a bunch of other stuff going on, too: NYC politics, unrequited love, lots of music, a horrible case of bullying, etc. but the scenes with Coco are the best.
Personal copy -
"Phoebe e io siamo sempre i primi ad arrivare in mensa. Appena aprono le porte, corriamo come pazzi per occupare le sedie di un tavolo d'angolo, un posto sicuro con due pareti dietro le spalle. Noi lo chiamiamo la Tana della Volpe. Tutti gli altri lo chiamano il Tavolo degli sfigati. Anche gli sfigati appena iscritti alla scuola sanno come arrivarci. Vedendo i bambini con gli occhiali o l'apparecchio ai denti, quelli grassocci o troppo magri, ogni sfigato dice a se stesso: Quelli sono come me."
Ma quanto possono essere crudeli i bambini?
Questo è il primo libro che leggo della serie della detective di New York Kathy Mallory. Un buon thriller, capace di tenere alta la tensione. -
I love Kathy Mallory. The depth of her character is amazing, and each book leaves me wanting more. This one is especially good, perhaps because of the long wait between books. A bit about the characters.
Mallory is an incomplete story - nobody knows her well. Many fear her, others love her, and everyone keeps their distance. Well, except for her partner Riker. And Charles (who is hopelessly in love with her). And her late father's poker playing buddies, who want so much for her. Some call her psychopath. But one thing is clear. She has a definite sense of morals and knows no boundaries when it comes to protecting the innocent.
Coco, is a beautiful little red-head with a smile that lights up a room, suffers from Williams syndrome which prompts her to reach out to anyone for a hug putting her life at risk. She has brilliant qualities, such as recognizing any vacuum by sound alone and playing the piano; and can't lace up her shoes or button her clothes. She simply thinks differently.
Mallory gets through to Coco on a deep level, and Charles (friend, therapist, police adviser) wants to protect Coco from Mallory's investigative motives.
There is so much to this book, it's simply quite beautiful to read. Except maybe for the rats. Lots of rats.
The mystery is excellent as always, although the characters in this series are more important than the events. It's a psychological study of the highest level, and more fascinating because we aren't given all the answers. Sometimes there's aren't any. Well, the crime is solved, and repercussions handled well (and by Mallory). But we still know so little about Mallory - it's like peeling an onion one layer at a time. I'd love to see a Mallory book written from her point of view.
My only complain about this story is a disturbing paragraph about Charles Butler at the end of the book. "This summer afternoon would remain in his memory forever, a bookmark to a sad and curious passage that he must return to again and again. Weill into his nineties and long after the death of Kathy Mallory, on every fine, warm day, he would sit in a garden where he would only suffer daisies to be planted." -
Wow, what a memorable kid. I wished for a different ending, but it's still an above-average story. Recommended. 4+ stars.
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The Chalk Girl is an odd mystery/crime novel. I had trouble maintaining any interest in the story, and I could only read one chapter at a time before I lost interest. I made it through eventually, but I wouldn't recommend this book unless you have read some of the others in the series first. Perhaps if I had, I would have been more sympathetic toward Mallory instead of just thinking her as a rude, violent, crooked cop.
Mallory has returned to her job as detective after a mysterious absence, and then with no questions asked is back investigating murders in Central Park. We know that she has a troubled past, but very little information about her past is given in this book, and perhaps that is why I cared so little about her and her unknown problems. Mallory is not likeable, and most of the characters are just odd and unpleasant. When the book began, I thought it was going to be a surreal fantasy story with the opening chapters about hoards of rats, but no, just rats roaming the park attacking and killing people as if it were a real life setting. -
I had forgotten that I had this book until I was cleaning up and going through my books. When I came across this book I picked it up to read it. This is the first book I have read in this series but I was able to jump right into it. It helped that Kathleen Mallory was so likeable but she also had some quirks about her that made her interesting as well. In addition, she is smart.
Now I have read many murder mystery stories but I have to say that the killings in this book was refreshing. What I mean by this is that they were not your standard "gut them" or "cut them up". This is all I am going to say about the murders as I don't want to give anything away. Try as I might I could not put all of the pieces together to solve the case before Mallory did. I will be checking out the other books in this series. -
Story: B+
Narration: A-
A young girl found wandering in Central park is a problem but when she leads the police to the dead body of her “Uncle Red” the problems begin to multiply. The dead body isn’t Coco’s “uncle,” he’s her abductor. He also isn’t the only body to be found in the park and Coco isn’t your typical child. She has Williams syndrome, a disorder that can cause (among other traits) being overly friendly towards and trusting of strangers and an unusual star-like pattern in the iris of the eye. Enter Special Crimes Unit detective Kathy Mallory and her partner, Detective Riker. Mallory might seem to have a lot in common with Coco, both having been lost children on the streets of New York and both evincing savant-like abilities, but where Coco’s experience and disorder trigger a need and ability to connect emotionally to just about anyone, Mallory’s childhood gave her the skills of a thief and an inability to make emotional connections. As the investigation proceeds, the current murders are linked to a fifteen-year-old case and corruption, blackmail, and an all-too real story of bullying twine together into an intricate and occasionally unnerving mystery.
I’m a fan of this series and whether this book is your introduction to Mallory or you’ve been along for the ride, I recommend it. I’ll admit to limited experience with the genre but if you’re looking for well-written crime fiction with vivid and fully realized characters and a complex mystery that isn’t intended to mislead you up until a shock ending but rather to engage you completely in the unraveling of the tale, you’d be hard pressed to find a better book. In addition to elegant writing, the aspect that I enjoy most with O’Connell’s books is her ability to be fiendishly creative with the mystery that develops. By the tenth book in a series, I usually expect a loss of ingenuity when it comes to the crime or mystery being investigated but not here.
The area in which those familiar with the series will find repetitive themes is character behavior and appearance. The descriptions of Mallory as a beautiful blond with startlingly green eyes who is always dressed in perfectly tailored clothes contrasts nicely with Riker’s disorganized life and rumpled and always-stained clothing. The emphasis on their outward appearances act as a reference for the inner composition of each character: Mallory as the emotionally sterile master manipulator who demands order and organization and Riker, a man who has been worn down but is always willing to protect Mallory from herself (regardless of the mess it might make of his professional and personal life) out of an unending well of sentiment for her foster father and his memories of her damaged childhood.
The word sociopath is applied to Mallory throughout the book(s) and, within the structure and rules her world was given when she was fostered by Detective Louis Markowitz at the age of nine, she behaves consistently with that description. The cadre of old men who were her foster-father’s contemporaries (a rabbi, the Chief Medical Examiner, a lawyer, and Mallory’s lieutenant) make their usual appearances, alternately impeding and being manipulated by Mallory. Charles Butler, psychologist and friend of the Markowitz family, is still hopelessly in love with Mallory while acknowledging she’s incapable of returning that emotion. As familiar as these elements are, however, they still work for me.
I liken my reading of Mallory to an astronomer who seeks to detect that which can’t be seen by observing the behavior of the visible orbiting bodies. It’s through Mallory’s interactions with these familiar supporting characters who so adore her and find her worthy of their time and affection that I catch glimpses that imply perhaps there is more going on in Mallory’s heart than we’ve been led to believe and that gets me every time. As Charles reflects on Coco’s devotion to Mallory and her child-like hope that Mallory will return her affections, I’m uncomfortably reminded as the reader that one of the emotional hooks this story has caught me with is an almost maternal wish for Mallory’s emotional shell to crack, despite an intellectual understanding that Mallory is a sociopath and always will be. It’s an amusing contradiction that I found myself very dissatisfied with what I assumed was the series end in book nine, Find Me, I find it intriguing that a character without a speck of empathy can evoke such emotion in me as a reader.
Like most listeners, a change in narrator this far into a series (all previous audiobooks have been narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan) usually creates a stumbling block for me but quite frankly, Barbara Rosenblat is A Voice. With her distinctive cadence, tone, resonance and a delivery that I find a bit closer to VO/theater than typical audiobook narration, it’s impossible to mistake her for any other narrator. That type of statement is usually followed by me saying “which doesn’t really work for me” but Ms. Rosenblat is a singular exception. Each character’s voice is built true to the author’s intent and is distinct in tone and speech pattern. The male/female differentiation is incredibly realistic to my ears and although the level of…acting?… emotional interpretation?… during the narrative sections strikes me as more suited to a story told first-person rather than third, her dry delivery is such a good match for the text/story that it all combines into an excellent listening experience. -
This review falls a little closer to 2.5 stars than to 3.
I've been reading the Mallory series for some years now, and I've become to think of it as magical realism by way of serial killer novels.
The newest Mallory opens in the usual way - there are some bizarre happenings, some bizarre killings, and some excellently bizarre characters. In this case, we start every chapter with information from an Ernest Nadler about his school experiences - it isn't till at least a quarter of the way in that we find out why this is relevant, though obviously it will become so. Someone is hanging nearly dead people up in trees, in the Central Park Ramble. There's a little elfin looking girl who has turned her disturbing witness moment into a fairy tale. And there is, of course, little Sociopathic Mallory.
I always feel as though plot comes secondarily to O'Connell's writing - it's more about the dark side of humanity, and the type of people you expect to find scurrying out from under a rock. It's just that as time goes on, I suspect she'd be better de-coupling these character studies from the Mallory character. The problem is that Mallory is SUCH a genius (or better, in the words of TV Tropes: a Magnificent Bastard) that all suspense and concern for the character is unsustainable. Problems in the police force? She has a way out. Problems with a psychiatrist? She has blackmail material. Problem being run down by a subway train? She knew to calmly lay down and wait for rescue. We as the readers know the mystery will be solved by the end, so without any character growth or danger the story reads as flat.
In the end, there are only so many times you can read about Mallory showing up Riker, Butler, and all her other compatriots. I long for a book where Mallory is proven WRONG, where there are bigger consequences, where her character undergoes SOME change - for the good or for the better, I don't care, so long as it's a change. -
This is my first read in the series, so I’m starting a little bit in the dark. It took quite a while to get a feel for the protagonist and her place in this fictional world.
It was also a challenge to sort out how well the dark, gritty, grisly dives this story frequently takes, almost in staccato, will play out, pay off, be shown valuable beyond the shock value. Ultimately I’m relatively ok with it.
It turned out to be a pretty complex read, not hard to follow, but layered and sometimes nuanced and ultimately worth reading, largely because of how the fascinating child who binds this novel together grew on me and kept evolving through the story, and how her relationship to the detective reveals who and where that detective is in her life.
I don’t know if I will continue the series. I’m neither against continuing nor in any hurry to seek out the others. But if I come across another I’ll pick it up with curiosity. -
First Sentence: The first outcry of the morning was lost in a Manhattan mix of distant sirens, barking dogs and loud music from a car rolling by outside the park.
Coco is a young girl found wandering in Central Park. She has stars in her eyes, a desperate need to be loved, an affinity for rats, blood spatters on her clothes and claims her uncle was turned into a tree. Coco has Williams Syndrome. When a body is found suspended in a tree, Mallory claims the case and quickly, with the help of her friend, Charles Butler, becomes the girl's guardian. Does this wounded child put a chink in the armour of another female wounded, or is she the sword who severs relationships?
Trying to describe a Carol O’Connell book is hard enough. Trying to describe a Carol O’Connell Mallory book is nearly impossible. Mallory is a character you either love or you don’t see the appeal of her. Mallory, rather as is the 20th Century Sherlock Holmes, is a high-functioning sociopath. At the age of seven; nearly feral, a seasoned thief and an expert at survival, she was found and taken in by police detective Lou Markowitz and his wife. Since their deaths, she has been watched over, protected and loved by Lou’s friends, including her partner Riker, and Charles Butler who loves her knowing she can never love him back. Yet Mallory does “love”, but not in any conventional way. She protects the innocent, is relentless in her pursuit of criminals and unrelenting in her exacting of justice. Mallory is the type of character you wouldn’t personally want to know, but find yourself drawn to and sad for. For those who may be J.D. Robb fans, Eve is a much milder version of Mallory.
On the other hand, O’Connell creates amazingly vile characters, but ones that are as far from the street-thug, gangster or classic murderer as one can get. There is more psychology than physicality behind the violence and, in some ways, that��s even more disturbing.
O’Connell’s plot is wickedly, wonderfully twisted. You never know where she’s going; it surprises you, amuses you, shocks you, devastates you and warms you. Whether the scene be heart-breaking or vile, there is such beauty to her words.
I was told by a friend that this was one of the saddest books she’d ever read. She was right, yet O’Connell also gives us a bittersweet gift at the end. As with every book O’Connell has written, it is excellent. It also one of the most haunting of her books—although her standalone “Bone by Bone” rivals it--and leaves you with a longing for her next book.
THE CHALK GIRL (Pol. Proc-Mallory-NYC-Cont) – Ex
O’Connell, Carol – 10th in series
Putnam, 2011 -
C2012. FWFTB: NYPD, damaged, blackmail, complicity, cruelty. When I found out that Ms O’Connell had, at last, published another Mallory novel, I pre-ordered this so long ago. Patience, patience, patience. And some more patience. 5 years worth! I have to say it was well worth the wait.The British paperback version does not yet seem to be on GR but I was very cross with the publishers for putting a comparison to Lisbeth Salander on the cover but I can imagine that this would attract some additional readers. From my point of view, there is no comparison either to the character nor the writer. O’Connell is so superior IMHO. This is Mallory at her best. To use a cliché – literally page turning and midnight oil was burned. I absolutely loved it. Ms O’Connells books would be perfect to convert to TV – why has no-one done this? I have to agree with the simple statement from Karin Slaughter “Carol O’Connell proves once again the enduring power of Mallory”. The New York Times also said everything I wanted to say “there is the shockingly underexploited Carol O’Connell, whose Kathy Mallory, a scarily smart, ice-blond stunner on New York City’s Special Crimes Unit, is as fine a fictional creation as the crime genre offers.”. The cover on the edition I have is evocative and has not tried to put a ‘face’ to Mallory just a general impression. Excellent.
This book is SO highly recommended.FCN: Kathy Mallory (don’t all her Kathy!“In mere proximity to Mallory people’s better angels were always dropping like dead houseflies.”), Riker, Grace Driscol-Bledsoe, Jack Coffey, Charles Butler. The humour is wonderful – sharp, elegant, subtle and just so New York (well, how I imagine a wise cracking native New Yorker to be) “..a man with a very large desk and a small moustache, a man who amazed one and all by the act of walking upright in the absence of a spine.” -
O'Connell's best yet! Kept me turning pages. I'm not a die hard "Mallory" fan but do enjoy the series. This one kept me on my toes and I didn't get bored with Mallory's infallible scams and schemes. O'Connell has a cast of misfits and psychotics from the rich and powerful to the lower minions in Mallory's own police force, a charming child that will remind you of Mallory's own childhood. The convoluted plots keep you on your toes. It's a challenge to stay abreast of our author as she twists and turns. Mallory, of course is up to her usual tricks but almost gets caught in her own micromanagement of her universe. You will wonder if she has finally met her match. The little red haired girl will charm you. The "beasts" will disgust you. You will be tempted, like Mallory, to show no mercy, especially after you fall in love with the best character in the whole book, a little dead boy named Ernie. And finally, you will come to realize that, after all is said and done, there is a tiny heart in Mallory's steel hard shell.
The only thing I didn't like in the whole book was the fact that there were two characters with similar first names, Willy and Wiley. I'm a fast reader and my brain would fill in Wiley when the paragraph was about Willy and then I would have to back track. It only happned in the first part of the book and not very often but, like Mallory, I don't like to be wrong and it annoyed me. LOL -
I could not stop reading this book and because I couldn't I finished about 400 pages in two days.
The book was intense and captivating and riveting.
Characters were fascinating...especially Kathy Mallory. Actually I loved her weirdness, strength and over the top behavior.
Totally charmed by Charles and Coco...psychologist and little lost girl.
The story involves murders, cover ups, private school bullies, wealthy divas, blind lawyers, drug addicts, agoraphobic wives, nosy neighbors and so much more.
This writer kept my mind whirling and I had no clue at all about who the murderer was until the last few pages.
Relationships were,intense and multilayered...Mallory and Coco, Mallory and Riker...her partner, Mallory and Charles...even Mallory and the Rabbi.
I loved this book. I have read another book by this author...Bone By Bone... but it did not involve this Mallory character.
But after this one I want to read every one of the " Mallory " books...I think they will be just as intense and amazing as this one!!! -
This is the first novel that I've read by this author and the 10th in a series about the detective, Kathleen Mallory. I was intrigued with this mystery yet I felt like I'd read it once before. It felt familiar because, (apparently) the main character, Kathy Mallory, also experienced a damaged childhood reminiscent of Lisbeth Salander from the Stieg Larsson series. In addition, she also defects and then reappears later on for her job, which labels her unstable. Like Lisbeth, Mallory is a high functioning sociopath with computer hacking skills. I might have enjoyed this novel more if I hadn't started the series at #10. I did think that it was well written and I plan to also read her stand alone mystery, Bone by Bone.
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A friend of mine recommended that I check this book out. It was a pretty good read and mystery. My first Carol O Connell book.
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A most excellent 5 star read! WOW this one is good.
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It took a while, but I finally decided that it wasn't really necessary for me to read all the other Mallory novels before reading the ARC of The Chalk Girl I received as a LibraryThing Early Reviewer (thank you!). While it is good to read the books in sequence, thereby having a better idea of who Kathy Mallory is and why, I don't think it's mandatory; with these books there is a trend of "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" – while it is very much a series (and they are all very good), little that happens in any given book affects anything in any book that follows. So I skipped a couple, and will return to them one day soon.
A horrifying sequence of events comes together in the beginning of this book to break out into two separate but very much related Issues for Mallory and her partner Riker, and of course her other partner Charles Butler, to deal with: three people found hanging from trees in Central Park; and a blood-spattered little girl called Coco who is rootless and helpless and strange, in great need of Team Mallory and also of invaluable aid to them.
Never, ever, in all of the murder mysteries I have read and seen has there ever been a potential victim like Willy Fallon. She was introduced in mortal danger, and I hoped against hope that she would be saved. By the time she regained consciousness again I wished the rats had eaten her alive. Within another chapter or two I wished the rats had eaten her alive and done it slowly. Over several days. Weeks, if possible. Rats with dull teeth. Incontinent rats with dull teeth and tapeworms. I've never experienced such a whiplash reversal of emotions about a character. And it's been a long time since I've felt such an extravagance of hatred for a character.
About Kathy Mallory there is no real whiplash. I don't like her. I'm not supposed to. Compassion is called for, from anyone with any familiarity with previous books in the series and Mallory's past, but liking? Only, perhaps, as some science fictional future person might like some alien who might look human but lack most human qualities. (Yes, of course, I was going to say Vulcan – but that doesn't work even jokingly.) Mallory is damaged. The damage was mitigated, slightly, when Lou Markowitz plucked her from the streets when she was ten (or twelve, but probably eleven), but the influence he and his lovely wife managed to have over her created something like a trompe l'oiel mural – it looks right, especially from a distance, but it's not what you think. Manners, respect for others' property and feelings, empathy: with her it's all a veneer, learned rote behavior without understanding. So, no, she's not likeable; if you're her friend, she will use you as needed, because she has little conventional understanding of what friendship is or should be. (A comment which actually could apply to several people I've known, but that's beside the point.) Her interactions with the child in this book are … disturbing. Is she growing a soul? Or is this just more evidence of her sociopathy, the ability to charm, and charm into usefulness, without meaning or feeling a bit of it? She sits on the floor with Coco to play or tie shoes – but is that simply a means to an end, or a temporarily gentler way of using the little girl? Is this line of questioning even a valid one, or just me still trying to jam Mallory into a more traditional pigeonhole?
The Mallory novels are a study in how a sociopath – made, apparently, not born – can function in society, and particularly in a position of power and responsibility: as a police officer. How she reconciles her overlay of training as a child with the lessons she learned fighting for her life on the streets of New York. How the people in her life reconcile her incomprehension of basic empathy and all that springs from it with the love they can't help having for her from her childhood. Mallory is occasionally called a "paladin" in the text, and it seemed completely wrong to me at first – the image the word brings to mind a paragon of virtue and goodness. If Mallory is a paragon of some of the traditional virtues – say, chastity (that's the only one I can think of that fits her) – it's almost incidental to her character; her morality is highly dependent on circumstance. But
"any determined advocate or defender of a noble cause" fits. Determined? No one ever was moreso. And if she learned anything from the only father she ever knew, it is that killers are to be hunted down and taken out of society. Her addition to that credo is in whatever manner presents itself.
The horror element is strong in The Chalk Girl. There is not only the cluster of appalling murders (and attempted murders) and all of the horripilous events surrounding them at the beginning, there is the chain of events leading to the murders. An expensive, exclusive school, plus some evil children with rich parents, plus one child with less wealthy parents all but on his own in said school, plus school administrators who literally look away as the one child is set upon by others … But really, what could be done? The image of a teacher or the headmaster taking an unwavering stand and defending the boy, launching an barrage of punishments and requirements at the offenders and their parents, is a lovely one … but it seems very clear that such a stand would be met by the moneyed accuseds' parents with a prompt pink slip, character assassination to prevent further employment, and immediate replacement by someone more malleable. "Not my child" would be the uniform response – even (especially) from the parents who knew damn good and well what their children were made of – that is assuming the complaints ever even reached the parents to start with – and one little boy's suffering would have in the end been every bit as unheeded as if no one spoke up for him at all. Administrators acted, heinously but almost understandably, out of self-preservation. The boy's own parents … there might be blame that could be laid there, but under the circumstances perhaps not. Someone, somewhere might have gone to the police – but given that the responding officer might have been the filthily corrupt waste of flesh who became involved when it was too late that might have been as pointless as anything else. It was a terrible confluence of events – and all terribly realistic.
And therein lies the horror. The fact that no one would listen combined with the fact that the boy (and his attackers) knew no one would listen to produce tragedy. And from that tragedy – a pair of tragedies, actually, or perhaps a triad depending on how you look at it – a path was laid directly to the events that begin the book.
There is something of a pattern emerging among the Mallory novels. Magic: check; the beginning of the book has a dark fairy tale feel to it, and Coco is half an inch away from being a fairy. Isolation of story: check; while events in the previous book are mentioned, they are all but irrelevant, and seem to have had no impact on Mallory and not much on anyone else – and I'd bet money we'll never hear from Coco again. Two separate yet connected storylines following a case for Charles and a murder or several for Kathy and Riker: check. Crime in the distant past sparking/laying groundwork for/leading up to present day crimes being investigated by Mallory and Riker: check; a wino (her word, not mine) was murdered some fifteen years ago, and a boy died, and while an innocent was jailed the perpetrators went their merry ways untouched. Till now. Mallory investigates said old case, whether it's considered closed or not, whether she's courting dismissal by doing so or not: check.
Still, formula or not, the Mallory novels are out of the ordinary. The writing is infallibly lovely, even describing the ugliest things. Even though the formula is fairly closely adhered to in each novel, there is no real sense of déjà vu. The characters are every bit as vivid, the story just as gripping, in this most recent book as in the first one. -
I loved it.. really enjoyed the book!!!
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"The Chalk Girl" was a good read and had suspense, interesting characters, intrigue, even some odd twists and turns. As the plot thickened, though, sometimes it digressed into a convoluted mess of minute incidents that could be hard to follow. And although the majority of these things had to do with the overall plot, I found that these little incidents always complicated the book almost to an insane degree. It was a minutia in the minutia of the trivia sort of deal throughout, which created a very tedious read. Of course, that's what mysteries are made of, you might say, but this book's so overlaid with this sort of stuff that it becomes almost boring and banal after a couple of hundred pages.
Although well thought out, overall, I was disappointed by Carol O'Connell's constant assertions about how beautiful and brilliant Kathleen Mallory, the central protagonist (a homicide detective), always was touted as being. Good fiction is based on the premise of "showing, not telling," and after reading halfway into the book, I was shown in vivid detail that Kathleen Mallory was nothing more than a psychotic sociopath who wears a badge. Her blatant acts at getting what she wants oftentimes even border on the criminal.
She's a computer expert; a tough-as-nails, drop-dead blonde; and like a good card player or chess player, can think three or four moves ahead, but this woman lacks all humanity. I found nothing likeable or admirable about her, and personally, I prefer my fictional detectives to have somewhat of a softer side, even though they may be gruff, tough, forbidding, and scary.
Mallory is about as savage as an alpha-female wolf hot on the chase for a kill. A major player in this mystery, a little red-headed girl suffering from Williams Disease, is nothing more than a witness that Kathleen Mallory needs to nail the bad guys to the stake so they can be burned alive. It's clear that Mallory's only interest in the child is a mouthpiece for a justice that she intends to serve, very cold, to all the "bad actors" who've been involved with a series of murders that occurred long, long ago (and most of these murders involved elementary-school-aged children). The antagonist, by the way, is even more unlikeable and despicable than Mallory, which acts to save the fictional face of this fictional detective, to a degree. And in the end, as much as I disliked Mallory, I was even happy that she gave this antagonist a very through tromping. She literally ripped the antagonist to shreds.
I originally gave "The Chalk Girl" two stars, wrote a more cursory and negative review, but after considering rewriting this and being a bit more objective and fair, I decided to add a star. It's not the best detective mystery I've ever read, but it's certainly not the worst, either. It's okay. That's all. But for a guy who loves to read works in this genre, okay is a pretty good mark and it's good enough to keep reading "okay" novels in this genre.
I'd suggest "The Chalk Girl" as a possible future read. It has all the elements of a good mystery, but also has some major flaws. -
Author Carol O'Connell has been doing this series long enough that this latest volume reads like a well-oiled machine with a fast pace and a macabre sense of humor, that's somewhat balanced by main character Kathy Mallory having a heart of gold beneath her well groomed but stone cold exterior. Mallory was out in the world on her own from a very young age and it shows in the ruthless survival skills she brings to her police work. This is the first Kathy Mallory novel I've read and it was a little bit like coming late to a party after all the in jokes have already been established. Mallory's police partner thinks she's a lark and takes satisfaction in watching people react to her threatening, not-by-the-book methods. Her boss is resigned to looking like a fool because she always ultimately gets the best of him. Like Lisbeth Salandar of Dragon Tattoo fame, Mallory has awesome computer sleuth skills that leave the men in her department grateful but spooked.
Chalk Girl is written with a third person narrator, and readers are allowed inside just about everyone's head except Mallory's, enhancing the feeling that she's aloof, inscrutable and more allegoric than fully human. The book's gruesome and especially creative/bizarre murders are discovered with the help of a little girl, Coco, who has William's Syndrome, a condition that gives her a wide range of symptoms, including extreme friendliness and musicality, that helpfully manifest in rapid succession, one by one, in the in the early stages of the plot's development. There's a tug of war between Mallory, who wants to get information from Coco to solve the crimes, and Charles Butler, a psychologist who wants to protect Coco from Mallory's incessant and, he believes, insensitive questioning.
I prefer main characters that are less mythic and more flesh and blood, but Chalk Girl will be just the thing for fans of complex, grisly, suspenseful mysteries with a larger (and prettier) than life protagonist. -
I've missed Mallory in the 5+ years since
Find Me. In fact, I'd more or less said good-bye to to series, since Find Me read like a series-ender to me. I still wonder if it was intended that way.
But Mallory is back, and no one knows what to make of her. Even more so than usual. The events of the last book are dealt with in a satisfactory if not entirely satisfying manner.
Mallory is back, and she's her old self again. If fact, this may be one of the best Mallory books. Mallory is in her element exploring a series of bizarre crimes. There are lots of twists and turns, hidden money motives, not so hidden money motives, and links to Important People, and at least one person that wants to be seen as important again, although arguably she never was.
The best part of the books was Mallory's link with Coco, a little girl with William's Syndrome, a little girl who will do anything to earn Mallory's love. On the surface, these two have nothing in common. Dig a little more, and you see a close kinship of damage and healing. One more layer down, you see Mallory exploiting a helpless girl because she's a witness to a crime. What's under that layer?
Dr. Charles Butler, Mallory's best friend and staunchest advocate, believes that there is nothing else, that Mallory would put this girl in harm's way for her own ends. But maybe, just maybe, there is a spark of humanity in Mallory after all. -
I have always really liked the Mallory mysteries. Mallory is a NYPD homicide detective with a past. Rescued as a child from a feral existence on the streets of New York by a detective, she grew up looking at both sides of the criminal world and chose the more legitimate world of the NYPD - barely. Fortunately, she is surrounded by her foster-father's old friends and her alcoholic partner who love her in spite of her cold, calculating mind; and who shield her from the retaliations of her bosses in the force.
CHALK GIRL takes the reader from murder victims hung in trees like cocooned bugs to the political shenanigans of the top ranks of the NYPD to the terrifying world of high society prep schools. Mallory moves through all these worlds with her own agenda - and her unswerving goal of solving the murders - no matter who gets hurt or offended. She saves a damaged little girl who may have witnessed the murder of her kidnapper, and feels a connection to this child, in her own strange way. The characters, as always, are varied and interesting. As is the intricate plot.
I read the Mallory books as much for the horrified fascination of Mallory's twisted mind as I do for the murder mysteries themselves. For the first time, I noticed a foreshadowing of Mallory's future - and Charles' future (the psychologist who is in love with Mallory in spite of acknowledging her untouchability)- that makes me wonder just what O'Connell has in mind as an endgame for this series. I can't wait to find out. -
It has been a while since I have read a mystery/thriller by Carol O'Connell and I can't thank my beautiful cousin Liz enough for recommending this book, "The Chalk Girl" It is the 10th in her Kathleen Mallory series.
Wow was this ever an exciting read, I love psychological thrillers like this one, it was just so full of chills and surprises and I held my breath more than once while reading this book.
Kathleen is such a complex character. I loved reading more about her and getting to know her just a little bit better.
There is so much going on in this book and it is full of such cruelty but also so much sadness. It is not an easy book to just walk away from after you finish reading it, I keep thinking about it even now.
I loved it and now I have 3 more in the series coming my way thanks to Amazon. -
The Chalk Girl is very professionally written and shows so much style. I wished for a less overused setting (the Ramble in Central Park, and New York City generally), theme (rich people behaving badly), and child character (brilliant, afflicted, precocious, with an unusual syndrome).
If you like Linda Fairstein's books, and I do, you will like The Chalk Girl. -
Wow
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