Kathy Mallory, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
This second instalment in the Mallory series is a brilliant development of Mallory’s history and character. Carol O’Connell has created a wonderfully enigmatic, dark, often terrifying heroine and is developing and enriching the character with every book in the series. There are some chilling revelations about Mallory’s history here, and her present-day behaviour means that I would probably run away from her very fast, but she’s a wonderfully complex character whom I love to read about and always want to get to know better.
The story is good, involving a difficult murder case with some high-profile suspects and a dysfunctional family who bring their son to Kathy and Charles’s consultancy for investigation into apparent paranormal activity. It’s all well done with some vivid characters and sordid secrets, while Mallory’s unorthodox (and often illegal) methods are darkly entertaining.
I found one aspect of the story rather hard to accept (I won’t say more because of spoilers) but this is another fine book from O’Connell, who both revels in the genre and sometimes subverts it by blurring lines between good and bad and refusing always to provide a “just” resolution to each strand. It’s a great read and I can recommend it (and the whole series) very warmly.
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