The Man Who Cast Two Shadows (The Man Who Lied to Women)

Formerly a child of the streets, now a brilliant computer hacker and NYPD sergeant, Kathleen Mallory's powerful intelligence is matched only by the ferocity with which she pursues her own unpredictable vision of right and wrong. And she will need every bit of that intensity now, in a murder case that strikes close to home in more ways than one.

Kathleen Mallory returns. In The Man Who Cast Two Shadows. At its heart is the singular character of NYPD sergeant Kathleen Mallory, a wild child whose powerful intelligence is matched only by the ferocity with which she pursues her own unpredictable vision of right and wrong. And she will need every bit of that intensity now, in a case that strikes close to home in more ways than one - a young woman found dead only a few blocks away, her skull and hands crushed, her neck snapped, and a label in her jacket that reads "Kathleen Mallory."

Publishers Weekly

O'Connell's second novel (after Mallory's Oracle) brings back NYPD Sergeant Kathy Mallory, plunging this tough-minded yet soulful heroine into another convoluted case. When a woman killed in Central Park is mistakenly identified as Mallory, the former street urchin and computer whiz sets herself up as bait by moving into the apartment building that houses her three main suspects. Using a computer and the building's electronic bulletin board to psych out the killer, she stirs up more than she bargained for-including someone who wants her dead. Other elements in the intelligent plot include a crime of passion, a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game and a boy who may be telekinetic and whose stepmothers keep dying. The dialogue is crisp, the prose supple, but the overall tone is dour, sometimes, in fact, mournful. Not enough of the story is told from Mallory's point of view, however, and O'Connell tends to evoke her mysterious behavior through description rather than through action. As a result, Mallory-who with her bitter youth, street smarts and rough edges carries echoes of Andrew Vachss's Burke-remains an enigma, a major absence at the center of the plot. BOMC and QPB selection. (June)

NYPD sergeant Kathleen Mallory will need every bit of the ferocious intensity she's known for when she's faced with the death of a woman found with her neck snapped and a label in her jacket that reads "Kathleen Mallory". From the author of Mallory's Oracle. In New York a murdered woman is identified as Kathleen Mallory by a label inside her jacket. At that the real Mallory, a computer-literate sergeant in the New York police department who once owned the jacket, fires up her desktop and goes to work Her fixation with machines had its roots in the telephone company nets which spread around the planet.