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Synopsis
She hit the New York Times list with Bone by Bone. Now her repackaged backlist will fly off the shelves.
When a legendary magic trick goes horribly awry on national TV, detective Kathleen Mallory knows the gruesome death won't be the last. For misdirection is the heart of all magic-and perfect crimes.
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Review
There has always been a touch of magic, a whiff of deception and illusion about Mallory, the New York homicide detective who never lets anyone call her Kathy. In highly praised books such as Killing Critics, Mallory's Oracle, and The Man Who Cast Two Shadows, Carol O'Connell has wrapped her fascinating, frustrating character in a cloak of myth. So it's no surprise that in her fifth adventure, Mallory is literally surrounded by magic and magicians, trying to find out why an old illusionist was killed while re-creating a famous trick involving four crossbows.
All of the suspects are magicians themselves, connected to the past and each other by events in Paris during World War II. One of them, a self-declared madman named Malakhai, lives in a mental hospital and maintains an elaborate fantasy involving his dead wife. There's a marvelous set piece early on--a poker game at which this invisible woman not only takes a seat but also makes bets, wins hands, and smokes lipsticked cigarettes. Of course Mallory is largely on her own in the investigation: she insults her only two friends and alienates all her police colleagues with her weird, unorthodox methods.
O'Connell is a richly poetic writer who fills her books with fleeting samples of everyone from Rilke and T.S. Eliot to Billie Holiday. Even if you're not deeply interested in how magicians work their magic, you should find enough other pleasures here to enjoy the author's superb bag of tricks. --Dick Adler
About the Author
Carol O'Connell is the author of eight previous Mallory novels, including the national bestseller Winter House, and of Judas Child.
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- PublisherHutchinson London
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0091802148
- ISBN 13 9780091802141
- BindingPaperback
- Rating
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Shell Game
Seller: Book Express (NZ), Wellington, New Zealand
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 424 pages. A magician dies while performing a trick on television and everyone assumes it was an accident, everyone except Kathleen Mallory of the New York police. She finds the motive in a crime involving magicians half a century earlier. Seller Inventory # 799b
Quantity: 1 available
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SHELL GAME
Published by
Hutchinson, London, 2000
ISBN 10: 0091802148
ISBN 13: 9780091802141
Used
Trade Paperback
Seller: Black Stump Books And Collectables, Skipton, VIC, Australia
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Trade Paperback. Condition: Fine. 1st Printing of 1st Edition. A firm straight unmarked book, appears unread, almost as good as new. Seller Inventory # 029791
Quantity: 1 available