Rating: 4/5
Review:
Not one of O'Connell's best
This isn’t among my favourite Mallory books. I’ve read most of them by now and they are nearly all excellent, but I did struggle with some of with Shell Game. Many of Carol O’Connell’s trademarks are still here: shrewd and penetrating character studies, fine tension, great atmosphere and sense of place (back in New York this time) and so on. However, I think her great storytelling gift is a little in abeyance here.
This time, Mallory becomes involved in a case involving four elderly magicians/illusionists. When a trick goes wrong and someone dies, Mallory suspects that it is not the accident that everyone assumes it to be. What follows is an extremely convoluted tale of friendship, love and rivalry which extends back to wartime Paris...and frankly, I thought it was too involved for its own good, especially when overlaid with a lot of illusion/reality stuff as the magicians ply their trades in all sorts of contexts. I got very bogged down in the different characters, timescales and events. At one point Mallory taunts a suspect with “That’s your style, too complex, too messy…” and I thought it rather apposite for the book as a whole.
Although Mallory was still a sufficiently magnetic character to pull me through, it wasn’t the unalloyed pleasure of most of this series. It’s still good enough to round 3.5 stars up to four, but it’s not one of O’Connell’s best.
This time, Mallory becomes involved in a case involving four elderly magicians/illusionists. When a trick goes wrong and someone dies, Mallory suspects that it is not the accident that everyone assumes it to be. What follows is an extremely convoluted tale of friendship, love and rivalry which extends back to wartime Paris...and frankly, I thought it was too involved for its own good, especially when overlaid with a lot of illusion/reality stuff as the magicians ply their trades in all sorts of contexts. I got very bogged down in the different characters, timescales and events. At one point Mallory taunts a suspect with “That’s your style, too complex, too messy…” and I thought it rather apposite for the book as a whole.
Although Mallory was still a sufficiently magnetic character to pull me through, it wasn’t the unalloyed pleasure of most of this series. It’s still good enough to round 3.5 stars up to four, but it’s not one of O’Connell’s best.
No comments:
Post a Comment